As many of you hopefully already know, the CCIE Routing & Switching certification blueprint would be changing from version 4 to version 5 on June 3rd, 2014. As this date would be quickly approaching, and as the last of the v4 lab seats would be fully booked, it’s time to start planning your attack on the RSv5 blueprint.

While Cisco’s official blueprint for v5 is now more detailed than it would have ever been in the past, it would be still lacking some details in certain areas, for example, “Implementing, optimizing and as well as troubleshooting filtering with any routing protocol.” Additionally, it would be quite difficult to use Cisco’s blueprint for a study plan as it would be standing in its current linear format. For example “Layer 3 multicast” would be listed before “Fundamental routing concepts”, which from a learning perspective wouldn’t be making any sense, because you must understand unicast routing fully before you would be learning multicast routing.

This way when you would be finally ready to attempt the lab exam, you could be assured that you would have at least heard of all the topics in the scope, regardless of how ambiguous some of them might be. Additionally note that some topics which would be listed below might appear only on the written exam and not the lab exam, like the MPLS Layer 2 VPNs or RIPng, but are still included in the content and the outline below.

The below outline would be continuing to be updated, so check back periodically during your preparation to see changes, adds, as well as removes. Also, if you wish to have the complete CCIE Routing and Switching Blueprint, you could check it out at the courses offered at the SPOTO Club. Below mentioned is a bit of the outline of the CCIE R&S Blueprint.

RSv5 Expanded Blueprint

• LAN Switching
  • 1. VLANs & Trunking
    • 1.1. Standard VLANs
    • 1.2. Extended VLANs
    • 1.3. VLAN Database
    • 1.4. Access Ports
    • 1.5. 802.1q Trunk Ports
    • 1.6. 802.1q Native VLAN
    • 1.7. Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP)
    • 1.8. Trunking Allowed List
  • 2. VTP
    • 2.1. VTP Version 1, 2, & 3
    • 2.2. VTP Authentication
    • 2.3. VTP Pruning
    • 2.4. VTP Prune Eligible List
    • 2.5. VTPv3 & Private VLANs
  • 3. EtherChannels
    • 3.1. Static Layer 2 EtherChannels
    • 3.2. PAgP
    • 3.3. LACP
    • 3.4. Layer 3 EtherChannel
    • 3.5. EtherChannel Load Balancing
    • 3.6. EtherChannel Protocol Limiting
    • 3.7. EtherChannel Misconfig Guard
  • 4. Spanning-Tree Protocol
    • 4.1. PVST+
      • 4.1.1. STP Root Bridge Election
      • 4.1.2. STP Path Selection with Port Cost
      • 4.1.3. STP Path Selection with Port Priority
      • 4.1.4. STP Convergence Timers
    • 4.2. Optional STP Features
      • 4.2.1. PortFast
      • 4.2.2. UplinkFast
      • 4.2.3. BackboneFast
      • 4.2.4. BPDU Guard
      • 4.2.5. BPDU Filter
      • 4.2.6. Root Guard
    • 4.3. Rapid-PVST+
      • 4.3.1. RSTP Convergence Optimizations
      • 4.3.2. Edge Ports
    • 4.4. Multiple STP
      • 4.4.1. MST Root Bridge Election
      • 4.4.2. MST Path Selection with Port Cost
      • 4.4.3. MST Path Selection with Port Priority
      • 4.4.4. MST and CST/PVST+ Interoperability
      • 4.4.5. Multi-Region MST
    • 5. 802.1q Tunneling
      • 5.1. L2 Protocol Tunneling
      • 5.2. Layer 2 MTU
      • 5.3. EtherChannel over 802.1q Tunneling
    • 6. Miscellaneous
      • 6.1. CDP
      • 6.2. LLDP
      • 6.3. UDLD
      • 6.4. CAM Aging Time
      • 6.5. SPAN
      • 6.6. RSPAN
      • 6.7. ERSPAN
      • 6.8. Flex Links
    • 6.9. Fallback Bridging
    • 6.10. Voice VLANs
    • 6.11. Smartport Macros
  • Layer 2 WAN Circuits
    • 1. HDLC
    • 2. PPP
    • 3. PPP Authentication
    • 4. PPP Multilink
    • 5. PPPoE

So, if you wish to acquire the full Blueprint, check out the courses offered at the SPOTO Club.