Objective 6.3
200-301Describe controller-based, software defined architecture (overlay, underlay, and fabric).
Objective 6.3 sits in Automation and Programmability, which carries 10% of the CCNA exam. The questions below are original, written from the official objective title above, and each explanation cites the Cisco page it rests on.
Objective title verbatim from the official objectives. Cisco exam page ↗
A worked example
Shown solved, with the whole explanation open: this is what every question here carries.
A wired client sends traffic to an endpoint elsewhere in an SD-Access fabric. The edge switch must learn which node that endpoint sits behind. Which fabric role answers the lookup?
Correct.
Checked against cisco.com, August 2026Concept
A fabric separates endpoint identity from location. A mapping database records where each endpoint currently sits and answers queries from forwarding devices, so a switch asks the database instead of flooding to find a destination.
Why A
The control plane node runs the LISP Map-Server and Map-Resolver. Edge nodes register the endpoints they detect with it, and it associates each endpoint with the routing locator of the edge node behind which that endpoint sits, so the query returns an RLOC.
Source
Cisco: SD-Access Fabric Troubleshooting Guide, checked August 2026Control plane node: The control plane node is based on the LISP Map-Server and Map-Resolver functionality. This node tracks all endpoints in the fabric and associates them to a fabric edge node's routing locator (RLOC).
Now you: objective 6.3 questions
No account needed. The explanation opens when you answer.
Sample question 1 of 2
Two virtual networks in a campus overlay use the same VLAN numbers, and duplicate MAC addresses exist in both. What keeps their traffic separate across the routed transport?
Sample question 2 of 2
An SDN architecture is described as abstracting the forwarding plane. What does that abstraction separate it from?
That’s 2 of the full CCNA bank.
Keep going free: 10 questions per certification in bank practice, with no account.
Continue practicingRead the sources
These are the official pages the questions above cite. Reading them is studying the objective from the primary source, which is what the explanations point you toward anyway.
More objectives in Automation and Programmability
- 6.1 Explain how automation impacts network management.
- 6.2 Compare traditional networks with controller-based networking.
- 6.4 Explain AI (generative and predictive) and machine learning in network operations.
- 6.5 Describe characteristics of REST-based APIs (authentication types, CRUD, HTTP verbs, and data encoding).
- 6.6 Recognize the capabilities of configuration management mechanisms such as Ansible and Terraform.
- 6.7 Recognize components of JSON-encoded data.