Practice for the CCNA exam with 22 exam-style practice questions, instant answer reveals, and concise explanations of every correct answer. Topics include: Which purpose does a northbound API serve in a controller-based networking architecture?. Follow @CertPunch and visit certpunch.com for more certification practice exams and study content.
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What you will practice
- Which purpose does a northbound API serve in a controller-based networking architecture?
- What is the purpose of a southbound API in a controller-based networking architecture?
- What is the destination MAC address of a broadcast frame?
- Which command must you enter to guarantee that an HSRP router with higher priority becomes the HSRP primary r…
- A Cisco IP phone receives untagged data traffic from an attached PC. Which action is taken by the phone?
- A network engineer must configure an interface with IP address 10.10.10.145 and a subnet mask equivalent to 1…
Answers and explanations
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Q1. Which purpose does a northbound API serve in a controller-based networking architecture?
Answer: A. A. facilitates communication between the controller and the applications
A northbound API facilitates communication between the SDN controller and high-level network applications. This abstraction allows applications to request network services programmatically without interacting directly with the underlying physical hardware.
Q2. What is the purpose of a southbound API in a controller-based networking architecture?
Answer: D. D. facilitates communication between the controller and the networking hardware
A southbound API facilitates communication between the SDN controller and the underlying networking hardware. Northbound APIs are the trap here, as they handle communication between the controller and applications or orchestration tools.
Q3. What is the destination MAC address of a broadcast frame?
Answer: B. B. ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
The Ethernet broadcast MAC address is ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff, which in binary is all ones. Frames sent to this address are flooded to all devices within the same broadcast domain.
Q4. Which command must you enter to guarantee that an HSRP router with higher priority becomes the HSRP primary router after it is reloaded?
Answer: A. A. standby 10 preempt
The standby preempt command allows a router with a higher HSRP priority to automatically reclaim the active role after recovering from a reload. Without preemption, the original active router retains the role regardless of priority.
Q5. A Cisco IP phone receives untagged data traffic from an attached PC. Which action is taken by the phone?
Answer: B. B. It allows the traffic to pass through unchanged.
The IP phone forwards untagged data traffic from the PC unchanged toward the switch. The switch applies its configured access VLAN to this untagged traffic, while the phone places its own voice traffic on a separate tagged voice VLAN.
Q6. A network engineer must configure an interface with IP address 10.10.10.145 and a subnet mask equivalent to 11111111.11111111.11111111.11111000. Which subnet mask must the engineer use?
Answer: A. A. /29
The binary subnet mask provided contains 29 consecutive ones, which corresponds to a slash 29 prefix length. Counting the network bits directly translates the binary mask into the correct CIDR notation.
Q7. A user configured OSPF and advertised the Gigabit Ethernet interface in OSPF. By default, to which type of OSPF network does this interface belong?
Answer: C. C. broadcast
Gigabit Ethernet is a multiaccess technology, so OSPF treats it as a broadcast network by default. This default behavior triggers designated router and backup designated router elections to reduce LSA flooding on the segment.
Q8. A router has three routes in its routing table: 10.0.0.0/8, 10.0.0.0/16, and 10.0.0.0/24. If a packet is destined for 10.0.0.22, which route will the router use to forward the packet?
Answer: C. C. 10.0.0.0/24
Routers use the longest prefix match rule to forward packets toward their destination. The slash twenty four route is the most specific match, effectively eliminating the broader slash eight and slash sixteen options.
Q9. A manager asks a network engineer to advise which cloud service models are used so employees do not have to waste their time installing, managing, and updating software that is only used occasionally. Which cloud service model does the eng…
Answer: D. D. software-as-a-service
Software as a Service delivers fully managed applications over the internet, completely offloading installation and updates from local employees. Infrastructure and Platform as a Service are incorrect because they still require the customer to manage operating systems or applications.
Q10. How must a switch interface be configured when an AP is in FlexConnect mode?
Answer: D. D. trunk port
A FlexConnect access point locally switches client traffic for multiple VLANs at a branch site. The switch port must be a trunk to pass tagged traffic, unlike local mode which uses an access port.
Q11. Which action must be taken when password protection is implemented?
Answer: B. B. Include special characters and make passwords as long as allowed.
Maximizing password length and including special characters increases entropy and improves security. Incorrect options suggesting short passwords or insecure storage practices violate fundamental access control principles.
Q12. Router A learns the same route from two different neighbors; one of the neighbor routers is an OSPF neighbor, and the other is an EIGRP neighbor. What is the administrative distance of the route that will be installed in the routing table?
Answer: B. B. 90
The route with the lowest administrative distance is preferred, and internal EIGRP has a default distance of 90. OSPF defaults to 110, so the EIGRP route is installed in the routing table.
Q13. Which cable type must be used when connecting two like devices together using these criteria? • Pins 1 to 3 and 2 to 6 are required. • Auto detection MDI-X is unavailable.
Answer: C. C. crossover
When auto MDI-X is unavailable, a crossover cable connects two like devices by crossing transmit and receive pairs. The pinout maps one to three and two to six, matching the criteria.
Q14. How does MAC learning function on a switch?
Answer: C. C. adds unknown source MAC addresses to the address table
Switches learn MAC addresses by examining the source address of incoming frames and adding unknown entries to the table. The system does not broadcast or send requests to learn source addresses.
Q15. When a switch receives a frame for an unknown destination MAC address, how is the frame handled?
Answer: A. A. flooded to all ports except the origination port
When a switch receives an unknown unicast frame, it floods the frame out all active ports in the same VLAN except the receiving port. True broadcast implies a broadcast address, and dropping breaks Layer 2 connectivity.
Q16. What is an advantage of Cisco DNA Center versus traditional campus device management?
Answer: D. D. It enables easy autodiscovery of network elements in a brownfield deployment.
Cisco DNA Center simplifies brownfield deployments by automatically discovering and inventorying existing network devices. Traditional device management requires manual intervention, eliminating the manual configuration distractors.
Q17. What is a function of an endpoint?
Answer: D. D. It is used directly by an individual user to access network services.
An endpoint is a device like a computer or phone used directly by an end user to access network services. Routers and switches are excluded because they forward traffic rather than originating user sessions.
Q18. How do AAA operations compare regarding user identification, user services, and access control?
Answer: B. B. Authentication identifies users, and accounting tracks user services
Authentication proves user identity, while accounting tracks user services and activity. Authorization is eliminated because it enforces access control rather than tracking or identifying.
Q19. What is the function of a controller in controller-based networking?
Answer: A. A. It serves as the centralized management point of an SDN architecture
In controller-based networking, the controller acts as the centralized management point of an SDN architecture. It centralizes the control plane, not the data plane, and is software rather than a router line card.
Q20. Which group of channels in the 2.4 GHz frequency band are non-overlapping channels?
Answer: B. B. channels 1, 6, and 11
Channels 1, 6, and 11 are the only non-overlapping channels in the 2.4 GHz band. They are separated by enough frequency spacing to avoid interference, whereas other channel combinations overlap.
Q21. What provides connection redundancy, increased bandwidth, and load sharing between a wireless LAN controller and a Layer 2 switch?
Answer: D. D. link aggregation
Link aggregation combines multiple physical links into a single logical connection, providing redundancy and load sharing. VLAN trunking and first hop redundancy do not inherently increase bandwidth.
Q22. What is a functionality of the control plane in the network?
Answer: C. C. It exchanges topology information with other routers.
The control plane builds the routing table by exchanging topology information with other routers using routing protocols. Forwarding traffic and looking up interfaces are data plane functions, not control plane.
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