300-420 Exam Dumps : Designing Cisco Enterprise Networks (ENSLD) v1.1

The border node provides connectivity between the SD-Access fabric and networks external to the fabric. In Cisco SD-Access, fabric edge nodes connect endpoints, intermediate nodes provide underlay transport, and control-plane nodes maintain endpoint-to-location mappings. Border nodes sit at the boundary of the fabric and connect the overlay to external Layer 3 networks such as WAN, data center, Internet edge, shared services, or other fabrics. They de-encapsulate VXLAN traffic leaving the fabric and advertise or import reachability using VRFs and routing protocols. A border can be internal, external, or anywhere border depending on whether it connects to shared services, outside networks, or both. Intermediate nodes do not provide external fabric exit; they only transport traffic within the underlay. Edge nodes connect endpoints but are not normally the external gateway for the whole fabric. Control-plane nodes provide mapping services, not external connectivity. Reference topics: SD-Access border node, fabric exit, VRF mapping, external connectivity, overlay-to-underlay boundary.

BGP Multipath Load Sharing is the feature used when a single router has two parallel BGP paths to the same ISP and the design goal is to install more than one eligible BGP path in the routing table. By default, BGP selects a single best path after evaluating path attributes such as weight, local preference, AS path, origin, MED, eBGP over iBGP, IGP metric to next hop, and tie breakers. When the competing paths are sufficiently equivalent and BGP multipath is enabled, Cisco IOS can install multiple BGP next hops for the same prefix and allow the forwarding plane to load share across both links. Multihop is used to establish BGP sessions to non-directly connected neighbors, not to load balance. Next-Hop Address Tracking improves convergence by tracking next-hop reachability, but it does not itself create load sharing. AS-path prepending intentionally makes a path less preferred for inbound traffic engineering. Therefore, the correct BGP feature for balancing outbound traffic across two links to the same ISP is Multipath Load Sharing.

MSTP is the correct spanning-tree choice for a Layer 2 design with many logical ports, multiple trunked VLANs, and a subsecond convergence requirement. Rapid PVST+ provides rapid convergence, but it creates a separate spanning-tree instance for every VLAN. With 30 VLANs on trunks and hundreds of active ports, the number of logical STP ports can grow quickly and increase CPU and memory load. MSTP maps many VLANs into a smaller number of spanning-tree instances while still using rapid convergence behavior based on IEEE 802.1w principles. This makes it more scalable for large Layer 2 domains than PVST+ or Rapid PVST+ when many VLANs are present. CST provides a single instance but lacks the flexibility and convergence characteristics expected in modern enterprise designs. The design needs both scalability and fast convergence, and MSTP is the standards-based protocol that best satisfies both requirements. Reference topics: MSTP, Rapid STP, logical STP ports, VLAN-to-instance mapping, Layer 2 scalability, convergence.