500-490 Designing Cisco Enterprise Networks (ENDESIGN) exam Questions and Answers

 The current time in enterprise networking history is characterized by the rapid pace of change in the network technologies, architectures, and services. Some of the factors that contribute to this change are:

The increasing demand for network performance, scalability, reliability, security, and agility from the business and end users.

The emergence of new network paradigms, such as software-defined networking (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV), cloud networking, and intent-based networking (IBN).

The proliferation of network devices, applications, and data sources, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile devices, cloud services, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI).

The evolution of network standards, protocols, and best practices, such as IPv6, 5G, Wi-Fi 6, Ethernet, and network automation.

These factors create new opportunities and challenges for enterprise network designers, engineers, and administrators, who need to keep up with the latest trends and innovations, and adapt their network solutions to the changing business and technical requirements.

References:

Cisco Enterprise Network Architecture and Design, https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/design-zone/networking-design-guides/enterprise-networking-design.html 1 : Enterprise Networking Explained: Types, Concepts & Trends, https://www.bmc.com/blogs/enterprise-networking/ 2 : What is enterprise networking?, https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/network-layer/enterprise-networking/ 3 : Enterprise WAN – A Brief History,https://blogs.juniper.net/en-us/enterprise-cloud-and-transformation/enterprise-wan-a-brief-history 4

Cisco ISE is a security policy management platform that provides secure access to network resources. Cisco ISE functions as a policy decision point and enables enterprises to ensure compliance, enhance infrastructure security, and streamline service operations1. Two of the statements that are true regarding Cisco ISE are:

ISE can detect endpoints whose addresses have been translated via NAT: Cisco ISE can discover, profile, and monitor the endpoint devices on the network, and classify them according to their associated policies and identity groups. Cisco ISE can leverage the pxGrid framework to share the contextual information with other security tools and platforms, and enhance the network visibility and security1. Cisco ISE can also detect endpoints whose addresses have been translated via NAT by using various methods, such as passive and active discovery, NMAP scanning, DHCP snooping, and RADIUS accounting234.

The number of logs that ISE can retain is determined by your disk space: Cisco ISE provides a logging mechanism that is used for auditing, faultmanagement, and troubleshooting. The logging mechanism helps you to identify fault conditions in deployed services and troubleshoot issues efficiently. You can configure your Cisco ISE node to collect the logs in the local systems using a virtual loopback address5. The number of logs that ISE can retain is determined by your disk space, as well as the data purging settings that you can configure under Administration > System > Maintenance > Data Purging6. You can also configure Cisco ISE to send its logs to a remote system for greater retention history7.

The other statements are not true regarding Cisco ISE, because:

In distributed deployments, failover from primary to secondary Policy Administration Nodes happens automatically: Cisco ISE supports high availability for the Administration persona, which provides centralized configuration and management of the distributed deployment. You can configure one primary Administration ISE node and one secondary Administration ISE node for high availability. However, the failover from primary to secondary Policy Administration Nodes does not happen automatically, unless you enable the automatic failover feature and configure a health check node to monitor the primary node’s status8. Otherwise, you have to manually promote the secondary node to become the primary node in case of a failure9.

In two-node standalone ISE deployments, failover must be done manually: Cisco ISE supports high availability for the Policy Service persona, which provides network access, posture, guest access, client provisioning, and profiling services. You can configure multiple Policy Service Nodes (PSNs) in a node group to provide session failover and load balancing for the endpoints. In a two-nodestandalone ISE deployment, where each node assumes all the personas, the failover for the Policy Service persona does not need to be done manually, as long as the network access devices are configured to use both nodes for RADIUS and TACACS services10.

ISE supports IPv6 downloadable ACLs: Cisco ISE supports downloadable ACLs (DACLs), which are configured and implemented through authorization profiles. DACLs are used to enforce granular access control policies for the endpoints based on their identity and other attributes. However, Cisco ISE does not support IPv6 downloadable ACLs, as it only supports IPv4 ACLs for RADIUS and TACACS protocols1112.

References:

1: Cisco Content Hub - Cisco ISE Features 2: Cisco ISE Profiler Service Overview 3: ISE Deployment through NAT Boundaries - Cisco Community 4: Configure ISE 3.3 Native IPSec to Secure NAD (IOS-XE) Communication - Cisco 5: Logging [Cisco Identity Services Engine] - Cisco Systems 6: ISE maximum logging time / data retention - Cisco Community 7: Logs retention on ISE - Cisco Community 8: Cisco Identity Services Engine Administrator Guide, Release 2.4 9: Setting Up Cisco ISE in a Distributed Environment 10: Cisco Content Hub - Network Deployments in Cisco ISE 11: Cisco Identity Services Engine Administrator Guide, Release 2.2 12: Solved: ISE: support for IPv6 DACL’s - Cisco Community

"There is no automatic failover for the Administration persona."https://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/ise/1.0/user_guide/ise10_dis_deploy.html...Newer platforms and ISE versions appear to support ipv6 dacl just fine now

 The vBond orchestrator is an SD-WAN router responsible for authenticating and orchestratingconnectivity between the vSmart controllers and SD-WAN routers. It is the sole device in the network that requires a public IP address for all SD-WAN devices to connect to it. The vBond orchestrator has three major functions:

Controller discovery: The vBond orchestrator acts as the initial point of contact for all SD-WAN components that join the network. It authenticates the devices using pre-installed credentials and assigns them to a vSmart controller. The vBond orchestrator also provides the IP addresses of the vSmart controllers and the vManage NMS to the SD-WAN routers.

NAT traversal: The vBond orchestrator facilitates the establishment of secure DTLS or TLS tunnels between the SD-WAN components that are behind NAT devices. The vBond orchestrator acts as a rendezvous point for the NATed devices and helps them exchange their public IP addresses and port numbers. The vBond orchestrator also performs NAT keepalive and hole punching to maintain the NAT bindings and prevent the NAT devices from timing out the sessions.

Certificate management: The vBond orchestrator acts as the certificate authority (CA) for the SD-WAN network. It generates and signs the certificates for the SD-WAN components and distributes them to the devices. The certificates are used to authenticate the devices and encrypt the control and data plane traffic.

References:

Cisco SD-WAN Architecture Overview

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Getting Started Guide

New Training: Identify Cisco SD-WAN Components

The protocol that runs between the vSmart controllers and between the vSmart controllers and the vEdge routers, and unifies all control plane functions under a single protocol umbrella is the Overlay Management Protocol (OMP)12. OMP is a proprietary protocol that is designed to enable the Cisco SD-WAN solution, which provides a software overlay that runs over standard network transport, including MPLS, broadband, and internet to deliver applications and services3. OMP provides the following services12:

Orchestration of overlay network communication, including connectivity among network sites, service chaining, and VPN or VRF topologies

Distribution of service-level routing information and related location mappings

Distribution of data plane security parameters

Central control and distribution of routing policy

OMP is an all-encompassing information management and distribution protocol that enables the overlay network by separating services from transport. Services provided in a typical VPN setting are usually located within a VPN domain, and they are protected so that they are not visible outside the VPN. In such a traditional architecture, it is a challenge to extend VPN domains and service connectivity. OMP addresses these scalability challenges by providing an efficient way to manage service traffic based on the location of logical transport end points. This method extends the data plane and control plane separation concept from within routers to across the network2.

References:

1: Routing Configuration Guide for vEdge Routers, Cisco SD-WAN Release 20.x - Unicast Overlay Routing 2: Introduction to Overlay Management Protocol in Viptela 3: Cisco SD-WAN vEdge vManage vSmart IBM

= Border nodes are the component of the SD-Access fabric that is responsible for communicating with networks that are external to the fabric. Border nodes serve as the gateway between the fabric domain and the network outside of the fabric. Border nodes are responsible for network virtualization inter-working and SGT propagation from the fabric to the rest of the network1. Border nodes also perform LISP Proxy Tunnel Router (PxTR) functions, which convert policy and reachability information, such as SGT and VRF information, from one domain to another2. Border nodes can connect to internal networks, such as data center or WAN, or external networks, such as internet or cloud3.

Edge nodes, control plane nodes, and intermediate nodes are not responsible for communicating with networks that are external to the fabric. Edge nodes are the access-layer switches where all of the endpoints reside. Edge nodes detect clients and register them with the control plane nodes. Edge nodes also providean anycast L3 gateway for the connected endpoints and perform encapsulation and de-encapsulation of data traffic4. Control plane nodes are the devices that run a host tracking database to map location information. Control plane nodes receive endpoint ID map registrations from edge and/or border nodes and resolve lookup requests from edge and/or border nodes to locate destination endpoint IDs5. Intermediate nodes are the devices that provide underlay connectivity between edge nodes and border nodes. Intermediate nodes do not participate in the fabric overlay and do not have any fabric roles6.

References :=

Role of Fabric Border Node & IS-IS protocol in Cisco SD-Access

Software Defined Access Network Fabric Roles - Study CCNP

Cisco SD-Access

SD-Access Fabric Troubleshooting Guide - Cisco

Cisco SD-Access Solution Design Guide (CVD) - Cisco

Cisco SD-Access Solution Design Guide (CVD) - Cisco

Cisco SD-Access Solution Design Guide (CVD) - Cisco

Cisco ISE incorporated Cisco ACS (Cisco Secure Access Control System) between ISE releases 2.0 and 2.3. Cisco ACS was a network access policy platform that provided authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) services for network devices and users. Cisco ACS was discontinued in 2017 and replaced by Cisco ISE, which offers more advanced features and capabilities for identity-based network access control. Cisco ISE provides a migration tool that allows customers to migrate their data and configurations from Cisco ACS to Cisco ISE. The migration tool supports Cisco ACS versions 5.5, 5.6, 5.7, and 5.8 and Cisco ISE versions 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3.

References:

Cisco Secure Access Control System End-of-Life Announcement [Cisco Secure Access Control System]

Cisco Secure ACS to Cisco ISE Migration Tool [Cisco Identity Services Engine]

Cisco Identity Services Engine Administrator Guide, Release 2.3 - Cisco Secure ACS to Cisco ISE Migration [Cisco Identity Services Engine]

Cisco Identity Services Engine Administrator Guide, Release 2.3 - Manage Migration [Cisco Identity Services Engine]

[Cisco Identity Services Engine Migration Guide, Release 2.3 [Cisco Identity Services Engine]]

[Designing Cisco Enterprise Networks (ENDESIGN) Exam Topics [Cisco]]

[Cisco Validated Design Guides [Cisco]]

ISE 2.3 includes the final suite of capabilities designed to reach feature parity with Cisco Secure Access Control System (ACS), allowing all existing ACS customers to migrate their deployment to ISE. New features include TACACS+-based device administration for IPv6, import and export capabilities for TACACS+-based command sets, policy export scheduling, IP range support in all octets, and more. See the ACS vs ISE Comparison for feature comparisons with every release of ISE

Cisco ISE is a policy decision point that enables enterprises to ensure compliance, enhance infrastructure security, and streamline service operations. Some features and benefits of Cisco ISE include1:

Zero trust across the network: ISE allows only trusted users and devices access to resources on your network. It also uses intel to automatically identify, classify and profile devices.

Policy and lifecycle management: ISE simplifies the delivery of consistent, highly secure access control across wired, wireless, and VPN connections. It also allows users to add and manage their own devices through self-service portals.

Remote management and deployment: ISE supports cloud-based deployment and management, as well as integration with other Cisco products and third-party solutions.

Site survivability: ISE provides local authentication and authorization services for remote sites, even when the connection to the central ISE server is lost.

Visibility of all devices and their users: ISE can provide data about when a specific device connected to the network, what type of device it is, who is using it, what applications are running on it, and where it is located.

Among these features, two statements are true regarding Cisco ISE:

ISE plays a critical role in SD-Access: SD-Access is a network architecture that uses software-defined networking (SDN) principles to create a secure, scalable, and consistent network fabric. ISE is the policy engine that defines and enforces the network segmentation and access policies for SD-Access2.

ISE can provide data about when a specific device connected to the network: ISE uses a number of probes to collect attributes for all endpoints on the network, and pass them to the Profiler analyzer, where the known endpoints are classified according to their associated policies and identity groups. ISE can also provide historical data about the endpoint connections, such as the time, duration, location, and user of the connection3.

The other three statements are false regarding Cisco ISE:

The major business outcomes of ISE are enhanced user experience and secure VLAN segmentation: ISE provides more than just user experience and VLAN segmentation. It also delivers business outcomes such as improved network performance, reduced operational costs, increased security, and simplified compliance4.

An ISE deployment requires only a Cisco ISE network access control appliance: ISE can be deployed on different platforms, such as physical appliances, virtual machines, or cloud services. An ISE deployment also requires other components, such as network devices, endpoints, and external identity sources5.

Without integration with any other product, ISE can track the actual physical location of a wireless endpoint as it moves: ISE can provide the location information of an endpoint based on the network device that it is connected to, such as the switch port or the wireless access point. However, to track the actual physical location of a wireless endpoint as it moves, ISE needs to integrate with other products, such as Cisco DNA Center, Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX), or Cisco Wireless LAN Controller (WLC)6.

References:

Cisco Content Hub - Cisco ISE Features1 : Cisco SD-Access Solution Design Guide (CVD) - Cisco2 : Cisco ISE Network Discovery3 : Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) - Cisco4 : Cisco Identity Services Engine Hardware Installation Guide,Release 2.7 - Cisco ISE Deployment [Cisco Identity Services Engine] - Cisco5 : Cisco Identity Services Engine Administrator Guide, Release 2.7 - Configure Location Mapping [Cisco Identity Services Engine] - Cisco6

Slide 5 & 7https://salesconnect.cisco.com/sc/s/learning-activity-from-plan?ltui__urlRecordId=a0c8c00000Kfw0EAAR <ui__urlRedirect=learning-activity-from-plan<ui__parentUrl=