Free Implementing Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure Practice Questions

Sample Practice Questions

Try these 10 sample questions from the Implementing Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure practice bank. Each includes the answer and explanation. Continue with the interactive practice above to review the full question set.

1. 1In a two-tier Cisco ACI fabric, which cabling pattern describes the intended leaf-to-spine topology?

   1. A. Each leaf connects to every spine, without direct links between peer leaf switches.
   2. B. Each leaf connects to one spine, with direct links joining the leaf switches.
   3. C. Each leaf connects to every spine, with direct links joining the spine switches.
   4. D. Each leaf connects to one spine, with direct links joining the spine switches.

   Answer: A

   Explanation: Cisco describes a two-tier topology "in which each leaf switch is connected to every spine switch in the network with no interconnection between leaf switches or spine switches." This excludes the peer links or single-spine attachment described by the other choices.

   Reference: Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Design Guide — Physical Topology

2. 2Which protocol carries learned endpoint information from ACI leaf switches to spine switches?

   1. A. OSPF
   2. B. LACP
   3. C. COOP
   4. D. SNMP

   Answer: C

   Explanation: Cisco states, "Cisco ACI leaf switches learn MAC and IP addresses and update the spine switches through COOP." The other protocols handle routing adjacency, link aggregation, or monitoring rather than this endpoint-database update.

   Reference: Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Design Guide — Local Endpoint Learning on the Leaf Switches

3. 3How does an ACI fabric participate in an external network's Spanning Tree Protocol?

   1. A. It elects a spine as the STP root for every BD.
   2. B. It forwards BPDUs but does not run STP natively.
   3. C. It translates external BPDUs into COOP updates.
   4. D. It terminates BPDUs at the ingress leaf switch.

   Answer: B

   Explanation: Cisco states, "The Cisco ACI fabric does not run Spanning Tree Protocol natively, but it can forward BPDUs within the EPGs." External switches perform STP calculations; ACI does not elect a fabric STP root or translate BPDUs into endpoint updates.

   Reference: Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Design Guide — Spanning Tree Protocol Considerations

4. 4What information must an administrator supply when initially creating an APIC VMM domain for VMware vCenter integration?

   1. A. The vCenter address and credentials
   2. B. The guest VM addresses and passwords
   3. C. The spine loopbacks and COOP secrets
   4. D. The external BGP peers and AS numbers

   Answer: A

   Explanation: Cisco states that the administrator creates the VMM domain "with the IP address and credentials for connecting to VMware vCenter." These are controller integration details; guest credentials and fabric-routing peers do not authenticate APIC to vCenter.

   Reference: Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Design Guide — Initial VMM Setup

5. 5An administrator is cabling out-of-band management for ACI leaf and spine switches. Which switch interface carries that connectivity?

   1. A. A tenant SVI on a front-panel port
   2. B. An Overlay-1 fabric tunnel interface
   3. C. The switch's mgmt0 interface
   4. D. A tenant L3Out subinterface

   Answer: C

   Explanation: Cisco states, "With out-of-band connectivity you can manage Cisco ACI leaf and spine switches using the management port (mgmt0)." Tenant SVIs and L3Outs use the fabric data path rather than the dedicated OOB port.

   Reference: Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Design Guide — In-Band and Out-of-Band Management

6. 6How are the pods of an ACI Multi-Pod deployment managed?

   1. A. Each pod requires a separate, independently configured APIC cluster.
   2. B. All pods use one APIC cluster and operate as one fabric.
   3. C. Only the first pod uses APIC; other pods use standalone NX-OS.
   4. D. Each pod is managed by its external IPN routers instead of APIC.

   Answer: B

   Explanation: Cisco states, "Multi-Pod uses a single APIC cluster for all the pods; all the pods act as a single fabric." APIC controllers can be distributed across pods while remaining in that one cluster.

   Reference: Cisco APIC Layer 3 Networking Configuration Guide, Release 6.1(x) — Cisco ACI Multi-Pod — About Multi-Pod

7. 7Which component routes or bridges tenant packets and applies network policies at the edge of a Cisco ACI fabric?

   1. A. The APIC controller cluster
   2. B. The fabric's spine switches
   3. C. The fabric's leaf switches
   4. D. The external IPN routers

   Answer: C

   Explanation: Cisco states, "The leaf switches are responsible for routing or bridging tenant packets and for applying network policies." APIC manages policy, spines interconnect leaves, and IPN routers provide external transport rather than the stated fabric-edge function.

   Reference: Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Design Guide — Leaf and Spine Switch Functions

8. 8An endpoint's APIC learning source shows only vmm. What does that value establish?

   1. A. The VMM reported the endpoint's location to APIC.
   2. B. A packet from the endpoint was routed by a leaf.
   3. C. An administrator manually entered the endpoint.
   4. D. Both VMM reporting and dataplane learning occurred.

   Answer: A

   Explanation: For a vmm learning-source entry, Cisco states, "Instead, it indicates that the VMM has communicated to the Cisco APIC the location of the virtual machine endpoint." This alone does not establish dataplane learning. A routed packet corresponds to learn, manual entry to static, and combined reporting/learning to vmm, learn.

   Reference: Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Design Guide — Local Endpoint Learning on the Leaf Switches > learning source types

9. 9With intra-EPG isolation disabled, which forwarding scope does Cisco document for external-switch BPDUs in an ACI bridge domain?

   1. A. Ports in the same bridge domain using the same VLAN encapsulation
   2. B. All ports in the bridge domain, regardless of VLAN encapsulation
   3. C. All ports using the same VLAN, regardless of bridge domain
   4. D. All ports in the physical domain, regardless of VLAN or bridge domain

   Answer: A

   Explanation: Cisco states, "Cisco ACI floods BPDUs only between the ports in the bridge domain that have the same encapsulation." Neither the entire BD regardless of VLAN nor a fabric-wide VLAN or physical-domain scope is the documented boundary.

   Reference: Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Design Guide — BPDU Handling in the Bridge Domain

10. 10APIC must automatically allocate VLAN IDs to VMware VMM EPGs and port groups as they are created. Which pool configuration supports that allocation?

    1. A. Use a static VLAN pool with static-allocation ranges.
    2. B. Use a dynamic VLAN pool containing only static-allocation ranges.
    3. C. Use a dynamic VLAN pool with an available dynamic-allocation range.
    4. D. Omit the VLAN pool association and let vCenter choose each VLAN.

    Answer: C

    Explanation: Cisco states, "the VLAN pool defined in the VMM domain should be configured as dynamic to allow the Cisco APIC to allocate VLANs to EPGs and port groups as needed." Dynamic allocation needs available dynamic VLAN ranges. Static-only allocation ranges require manual selection, and omitting the pool does not delegate APIC allocation to vCenter.

    Reference: Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Design Guide — VMM Integration