CCDE is one of the expert-level certificates of the Cisco certification program that is available for the interested IT professionals who want to become the experts in the field and perform the corresponding tasks. This certificate demonstrates that you know how to design and architect complex enterprise network solutions. The expert-level certifications of this vendor contain two exams to deal with, including one written test and one practical lab exam, and CCDE has the same structure and features.

This path is developed for those individuals who want to be prepared for an expert-level job role in network design and architecture and has no strict requirements that are needed to be fulfilled. However, you should possess a thorough understanding of the concepts covered in the exams and have at least 5 years of experience in designing and architecting network solutions. This means that you need to know how to engage in pre-sales work and other related activities.

Exam Details

To obtain the CCDE certification, the potential candidates need to deal with two exams, and Cisco 400-007 is the first one you should clear. This is a 2-hour written test that can include about 100 questions in the English language. It focuses on many topics and evaluates your knowledge of the following:

• Business Strategy Design – To answer the questions from this area, you need to have the skills in impacting on network design, optimization, and implementation as well as using various customer project management methodologies. It is also important to know about the solutions that are based on operational sustainability and business continuity;
• Data, Operational Design, Management Plane, and Control – The next section is all about software-defined architecture, controller-based solution design, as well as various types of control plane, such as centralized, decentralized, and hybrid. You should know about the end-to-end IP traffic flow, automation and orchestration design, integration, and on-going support for networks;
• Network Design – This part evaluates your knowledge of resilient, scalable, and secure modular networks that cover both software-defined and traditional architectures. This means that you have to know about the technical and operational constraints and requirements, implementation plans, business requirements, as well as application behavior;
• Service Design – If talking about this domain, it requires your knowledge of the Cloud/hybrid solutions that are based on the business-critical operations. Besides that, you need to have a good understanding of resilient, scalable, and secure modular network design, which is based on constraints;
• Security Design – The last objective covers the details of network security design and network security integration. Therefore, an individual should know about network access control, regulatory compliance, segmentation, policy enforcement, and visibility.

After completing the first test, you will need to clear the practical exam, which is 8 hours long and includes scenario-based questions. As for this option, it contains the details of the written test and can include the information about workforce mobility, on-premises and Cloud services, as well as large scale networks.

Further Career Path

The expert-level certifications offered by Cisco are very popular among the IT professionals because they validate all the needed skills and help them opt for a better job role and higher salary range. However, the potential candidates for the CCDE certificate should not forget about the recertification process that is required every 3 years. The industry is constantly changing, as is the content of the certification, so you should always check the details of any changes taking place in the Cisco program.