Last week, Cisco announced that the CCNP R&S track has been updated to version 2.0. We still have the ROUTE, SWITCH, and TSHOOT exams, but they added some additional topics like Cisco StackWise, VSS (Virtual Switching Services), and DMVPN (Dynamic Multipoint VPN). DMVPN was expected since it was added to version 5 of the CCIE R&S track.
These are the exams that will retire:
- 642-902 ROUTE
- 642-813 SWITCH
- 642-832 TSHOOT
They will be replaced by:
- 300-101 ROUTE
- 300-115 SWITCH
- 300-135 TSHOOT
As I’m writing this, you still have plenty of time to pass the old exams if you want to. The last test day is 29 January 2015.
You can find the syllabus for each exam right here:
Looking at the exam topics, here are some things that I noticed for each exam:
ROUTE
- CEF (Cisco Express Forwarding) used to be in SWITCH, now it’s also in ROUTE, it seems.
- TCP operations with some new topics like MSS and Global synchronization.
- VRF (Virtual Routing and Forwarded) has been added.
- EVN (Easy Virtual Networking) is new.
- RIP version 2 is still here, even though it was removed from CCNA R&S.
- DMVPN (Dynamic Multipoint VPN) has been added.
I think the exam focuses most on OSPF, EIGRP, and BGP…perhaps a bit more on IPv6. The other new topics are probably some minor additions.
SWITCH
- StackWise has been added.
This is the only new topic that I’m seeing on the list. The SWITCH exam is probably still all about VLANs, trunking, spanning tree, and HSRP / GLBP / VRRP.
TSHOOT
The TSHOOT exam is probably the same, except new topics like StackWise and VRF Lite have been added. They will also probably use a new topology for the exam. Last time, Cisco released the topology to the public, so we’ll have to wait to see if they’ll do the same thing this time.
Conclusion
It seems there are no major changes. I’m glad since I think the ROUTE, SWITCH & TSHOOT exams were pretty good. I will be adding lessons for all the new topics.
If you have any updates on the new exams, please let me know in our forum, and I’ll add it to the lists above.
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Hi Rene,
Suppose i give 642-902 ROUTE Exam before Jan 2015 , would i will be eligible to give 300-115 SWITCH exam after 29 th Jan 2015.
Hello,
Can anyone tell me, if i will passed Route and Switch exam before Jan 29, 2014 but unfortunately i will not attempt to T-Shoot paper. In this case my Route and Switch exam will remain valid or they will expire?
Please share your feedback.
Hi Haider,
They will remain valid, it’s no problem to do TSHOOT later.
Hi Shivkumar,
Yes that’s no problem.
Rene