Different About the New ICND1 100-101 Exam for #CCENT

Working through the revision of the Guide # CCENT / ICND1 Cert # the last six months, thinking a lot about ICND1 exam topics controlled, some choices made sense to me, and some did not. Frankly, my first reaction was to just moved too Cisco ICND1 ICND2 front. In fact, on paper, ICND1 has become much more important in terms of issues. But Cisco has taken some other topics of ICND1, killing some altogether and move others to ICND2.

This message will stick with the objective facts, based on exam topics published by Cisco. For all that is in the middle of announcing ICND1 study day, let's look at what seems to have changed - at least according to what Cisco tells the world of exam topics.

What’s on the Test? Exam Topics!

First, in case you are new to Cisco cert this world, everyone wants to know what is the exam. Cisco gives us an official response: examination subjects for the exam. Then we can all go to school online sites, such as the Cisco Learning Network, and listen to talk about what may or may not be the test. Or ask your co-worker what they saw during the exam. Etc. But the real answer is objective examination in these subjects.

• ICND1 100-101
• ICND2 200-101
• CCNA 200-120

This post is based on the old and new exam topics.

The Breakdown: Really New, Moved from ICND2, Moved to ICND2, and Gone Poof

This article also tilts the discussion for people who already know the old 640-822 ICND1 and 640-816 ICND2 exams. The first two topics are covered in ICND1 new topics: first, the subjects moved from the old to the new ICND1 ICND2, and then totally new songs added to the new ICND1 exam. These totally new issues were not within the scope of CCNA ads at all before March 2013.


After getting through what's new, this post gets into what has been removed from ICND1. Again, I will divide it into two categories: that which is moved from the old to the new ICND1 ICND2, and what has disappeared completely, both ICND1 and ICND2.

Moved from Old ICND2 to New ICND1

This may be the single biggest shock to most people about these new exams. Cisco moved a pretty large chunk of the exam topics over to ICND1. ICND1, and the related CCENT cert, have grown up. Figure 1 shows the quick hit list.

Figure 1: Topics Moved from ICND1

It’s a pretty amazing list at first blush. Before you panic, if you were thinking of going for the new exams rather than the old, keep moving until you read about the removed topics. But the net is that ICND1 has probably grown, topic-wise, by 20%.
To temper the sheer volume a bit, note a few particulars as follows:

• ICND1 introduces OSPF, and ICND2 takes OSPF deeper, so think of ICND1 as intro to OSPF.
• Port Security was already spread across both exams, so now it’s squarely in one place, which makes it better from an exam prep perspective.
• NAT was likewise spread across both the old exams, and now it’s consolidated in one place.
• VLSM and summarization just fit better over here in ICND1 with the rest of the IPv4 addressing math.

So in general, apart from the large number of issues last ICND1 ICND2, is perhaps a bit 'more about the organization, with a mild concepts of division for the exams.

Let's say you were going to CCNA. If you plan to use option 1 exam, until now, no big deal - you had to learn all the problems anyway. If you plan to take the road to two exams for the issues mentioned so far, the changes over time is necessary to study these issues.

Totally New to ICND1 and CCNA Routing and Switching

Now you say you were heading CCENT and CCNA before the announcement. However have had to learn the topics that appear in Figure 1, even old CCNA exams. The graph below shows the new songs Routing and Switching CCNA simply were not part of the old CCNA, on both sides of the equation, but are now in ICND1. If you take the new ICND1 or CCNA exam, you need to know:

Figure 2: Topics Totally New to ICND1 and CCNA in 2013

Of these, both troubleshooting NTP and are easy enough to lift each. NTP is relatively simple in concept and config. The addition of a topic of discussion on the directions of problem solving is an addition on paper, but I'm sure the old exams really tested our ability to solve the problems of IPv4 address problems. Adding a topic of discussion on layer 2 is the solution of problems of the same.

The depth of IPv6 topics has the biggest impact of all topics new to the ICND1 and CCNA exams. In fact, at face value from the exam topics alone, IPv6 appears to have equivalent coverage compared to IPv4. Some observations:

• The ICND1 IPv6 topics are far beyond what’s in the old CCNA and ICND2 exam topics.
• You can learn a lot about IPv6 by comparing it to IPv4.
• My new ICND1 book has 5 chapters on IPv6 (some are short), with roughly 95 pages of Foundation Topics coverage.

ICND1 hits a wide range of IPv6 topics: basic address formats, understanding global, link local, and special addresses, address assignment with DHCPv6 and SLAAC, OSPFv3, and even static routes. It’s not as bad as it sounds, but it is new, and much more than with the old exams.

And just to be clear, when you read Cisco’s ICND1 exam topics, in that section titled “IP Routing Technologies”, “IP” means both IPv4 and IPv6.

(Aside: I took a lot of time and effort to develop chapters IPv6 in the Official Guide ICND1 and ICND2 Cert specifically for these new issues ICND1, ICND2, and CCNA All material is new for the new editions book, based. IOS 15.2. chapters stress the similarities and differences with IPv4.'s not enough to get the contents of another book, but I wrote to fit perfectly with the IPv4 content in this new edition of ICND1. believe you will like what you see with this new content.)

Removed Completely from ICND1 and CCNA

Cisco moved a bunch of topics from ICND2 to ICND1, and vice versa. And yes, ICND1 seems a bit bloated. But Cisco did remove some topics from ICND1 and did not  move them to ICND2 – they are simply gone. Figure 3 shows the larger removed topics that leave ICND1 and are NOT moved to ICND2.

Figure 3: Topics Totally Gone from ICND1 and CCNA in 2013

RIP is finally dead! Hurrah! Done and gone, no RIP, no more RIP-1, RIP-2, not more. I mentioned a couple of times in the new book ICND1 of perspective and learning, but as an end in itself, no more!

Cisco Wireless LAN also eliminated subjects (WLAN). This was a very interesting choice in my opinion. (So yes, the rest of this paragraph is the opinion!) In real life, today is the LAN and the LAN cable (Ethernet) and wireless LAN should be seen as a cohesive unit. Entry Level Certificate Cisco WLAN then removes all but keeps tons of wired LAN. I am sure that the division is simply because if you want more on wireless, Cisco has a track CCNA Wireless / CCNP / CCIE.



So I'm sure it will be a popular choice, no longer Security Device Manager (SDM) or Cisco Configuration Professional, or any other global GUI configuration interface! Check a pain in the neck for the subject of study from the list!

Moved from Old ICND1 to New ICND2

So, for those of you planning to take ICND1 (for CCENT certification), and then to branch off to some other technology, never getting to CCNA Routing and Switching, you can ignore the topics shown in Figure 4. Cisco took these topics, formerly in the ICND1 exam, and moved them to the new ICND2 exam topics.

Figure 4: Topics Moved from ICND1 to ICND2

The new exams are a bit 'cleaner on how to maintain an argument is ICND1 or ICND2 a great extent, and the topics WAN are a great example. ICND1 still requires some basic principles of the WAN, but the entire WAN configuration, HDLC and PPP, even basic, passes over ICND2.

Cisco also moves some cleaning items, as bases router hardware, how to load and update IOS, and all those small details that relate to the administration of the router itself above in ICND2.

Finally, went with RIP, and EIGRP only ICND2, you still need to know something Distance Vector concepts. However, Cisco maintains with EIGRP, ICND2 over the side of the house.

Summary for the New ICND1 100-101 Exam

So what does this new exam look like if you remove the clutter?

• Focused on doing: identify, explain, configure, verify
• Lots moved from ICND2 to ICND1: VLSM, summarization, ACLs,
• Deeper IPv6