Free Practice Questions for Cisco 300-445 Exam

In theDesigning and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance (300-445 ENNA)architecture, the deployment of ThousandEyes Enterprise Agents on switching infrastructure is designed to be highly flexible, catering to different management styles and network scales. Modern Cisco switches, specifically theCatalyst 9300 and 9400 Series, support the execution of containerized applications directly on the switch's hardware through theCisco IOS XE Application Hostingframework.1

Application Hosting (Option A)refers to the manual method using the Cisco IOS XE Command Line Interface (CLI). An engineer can use app-hosting commands to install, configure, and manage the Docker-based Enterprise Agent.2This provides granular control over resource allocation and networking for the container.Catalyst Center (Option B)provides a GUI-driven, automated workflow to deploy agents at scale across an entire campus fabric.3It simplifies the lifecycle management by handling the installation and activation across multiple switches simultaneously. For switches acting as edge devices in an SD-WAN fabric,Catalyst SD-WAN Manager (Option C)orchestrates the deployment through centralized policies and templates, allowing the agent to be pushed as part of a device configuration. Finally, while theThousandEyes Portal (Option D)is the management plane for tests, it is also where the Docker image and Account Group Token are obtained for any of the aforementioned deployment methods.

Each method provides the same end result: an Enterprise Agent running "on-box" to provide deep visibility into the network path starting directly from the access or core layer. Therefore,All of the above(Option E) is the correct answer as it encompasses the manual, automated, and orchestrated methods available for switch-based deployment as per the 300-445 ENNA official guidelines.

In the context ofDesigning and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance (300-445 ENNA), capacity planning requires accurate baselining of interface bandwidth against its theoretical and provisioned limits. AnalyzingExhibit 4.5 Question 4(image_79d4fc.jpg) reveals a significant discrepancy between the physical reality of the link and its configuration within the monitoring tool.

The exhibit displays a capacity planning dashboard with a calendar heatmap and traffic graphs. The heatmap for February through May shows a high frequency of "Severe" (red) utilization blocks. Looking at theEgressgraph forTue May 07 2024, the traffic spikes clearly exceed 40.0 Mbps. Crucially, the dashboard indicates an "Egress Capacity" of49.5 Mbpsand reports that the "Highest consumption" was 48.0 Mbps, representing97%of the available bandwidth.

However, the question states that the ISP provides a1 Gbps (1000 Mbps) connection. Since the actual traffic being sent is less than 50 Mbps, the link is nowhere near physical saturation. The "Severe" alerts and high utilization percentages are occurring only because the monitoring software (likely ThousandEyes or a similar NMS) is configured with aMaximum Capacityof only 49.5 Mbps for this interface. This misconfiguration causes the tool to calculate utilization based on a much smaller "pipe" than what actually exists, leading to false-positive alerts.

Therefore, the most likely action to fix this observed behavior is toreconfigure maximum capacity for the interface(Option B) to match the 1 Gbps specification.

Option Ais unnecessary because the current link is only being utilized at ~5% of its 1 Gbps potential.

Option Cis a restrictive policy change that is not justified given the actual available headroom.

Option Dmight shift how data is displayed but will not fix the underlying mathematical error in utilization calculations.

In theDesigning and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance (300-445 ENNA)implementation guide, the Cisco IOS XEApplication Hostinglifecycle is a critical concept for troubleshooting and configuration management. When an application environment variable—such as proxy settings—is modified in the app-hosting configuration, a simple restart of the container is insufficient.

The correct procedure involves moving the application back to theConfiguredstate before bringing it back toRunning. This requires a four-step lifecycle execution (Option C):

Stop:Terminates the current running instance of the container.

Deactivate:Releases the hardware resources (CPU, Memory, Virtual Interfaces) and, crucially, detaches the previous runtime configuration.

Activate:Re-allocates the resources andinjects the new configuration parameters(including the updated proxy settings) into the container's environment.

Start:Initiates the container with the newly applied configuration.

Without thedeactivate/activatesequence, the container will continue to use the environment variables present at the time of its initial activation, causing the agent to remain offline as it fails to reach the ThousandEyes portal without the proxy.Reinstalling(Option B) is an unnecessary and time-consuming step that involves re-downloading or re-copying the image, whileNo action(Option D) will result in no change to the agent's connectivity status.

In the framework ofDesigning and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance (300-445 ENNA), selecting the appropriate ThousandEyes agent type is critical to balancing visibility requirements with infrastructure constraints. For Branch A, the primary objective is to gain network-layer metrics (such as latency, packet loss, and jitter) and path visualization for a SaaS application while strictly avoiding any performance impact on employee endpoints.

TheEnterprise Agent(Option C) is the correct choice because it is designed for "inside-out" monitoring from within the corporate network environment. These agents are lightweight software probes that can be deployed on existing network infrastructure, such asCisco Catalyst 9300/9400 switchesorCatalyst 8000 Edge Platforms, using Docker containers or virtual machines. By hosting the agent on the branch router or a dedicated local server, the engineer can execute synthetic tests to the SaaS provider's destination. This approach provides the necessary network vantage point from Branch A without requiring any software installation or resource consumption on the individual employee workstations (endpoints).

Other agent types do not satisfy the specific constraints of this scenario:

Endpoint Agentsare installed directly on user devices (Windows/macOS) to provide "last-mile" visibility. However, they use the endpoint's CPU and memory, which contradicts the requirement to not affect endpoint performance.

Cloud Agentsare maintained by Cisco in global ISP data centers. While they provide "outside-in" visibility, they cannot capture internal branch network characteristics or the specific path from Branch A's internal local area network.

Application Agentis a non-standard term and does not exist as a standalone agent type within the ThousandEyes architecture.

Therefore, deploying anEnterprise Agentwithin the branch infrastructure ensures that the network engineer obtains high-fidelity network metrics while keeping employee devices entirely unburdened.

Introduction to ThousandEyes

This video provides an essential overview of how ThousandEyes agents function within a CCNP-level enterprise network assurance strategy.

Under theDesigning and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance (300-445 ENNA)guidelines, the integration between ThousandEyes andCisco Secure Client(formerly AnyConnect) is designed to provide visibility into the hybrid workforce experience. The integration primarily leveragesnetwork performance data from the user's device(Option C) to diagnose connectivity and application issues.

This data is collected by theThousandEyes Endpoint Agent, which is deployed as a module within the Cisco Secure Client.10The agent captures real-time telemetry from the user's laptop or workstation, includingWi-Fi signal strength,CPU and memory utilization, andlocal network gateway latency. Specifically, for remote users, it monitors the health of the VPN tunnel and the performance of applications as seen from the end-user's vantage point.

When a user reports a "slow application," this integrated telemetry allows IT teams to determine if the root cause is the user's home Wi-Fi, a saturated VPN concentrator, or an issue within the ISP underlay. The agent performsAutomated Session Testing (AST), which maps the network path as soon as a user joins a critical meeting or accesses a SaaS tool, providing a granular view of every hop between the device and the service destination. Unlike hardware configuration data (Option A) or behavioral analytics (Option B), the focus here is strictly on thenetwork performance metricsthat impact digital experience.

Therefore, the collection of device-centric network performance data is the core function of the Cisco Secure Client and ThousandEyes integration.

In theDesigning and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance (300-445 ENNA)curriculum, transaction monitoring is essential for validating complex, multi-step user workflows. When an engineer with limited scripting experience needs to monitor a OneDrive file download process, the ThousandEyes ecosystem provides several tools to simplify the creation of robustTransaction tests.

The correct approach is to leverage all available resources, makingOption Dthe definitive answer. First, theThousandEyes Recorder IDE(Option B) is a critical tool for non-scripters. It allows an engineer to perform the actual workflow—navigating to OneDrive, logging in, and initiating the download—in a browser environment on their local machine while the tool records every click and keyboard entry. The Recorder automatically generates the corresponding JavaScript code using theThousandEyes transaction library. Second, the platform provides pre-builtscript templates(Option A), such as those forOffice 365andOneDrive, which include baseline logic and best practices for these specific services. Third, the officialtransaction-scripting-examplesrepository on GitHub (Option C) is a maintained source of code snippets. This is particularly useful for implementing advanced logic, such as aretry mechanism, which ensures that the test does not report a "failure" due to a transient network hiccup but instead attempts the action again before triggering an alert.

As shown in the provided exhibit, a typical script uses import statements from @thousandeyes and selenium-webdriver to control the browser. By combining theRecorderfor the basic flow, aTemplatefor service-specific nuances, andSample Scriptsfor logic enhancements like retries, the engineer can deploy a highly reliable assurance test without deep coding expertise. Therefore, all three actions are highly recommended and valid within the ENNA implementation framework.

In the context ofDesigning and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance (300-445 ENNA), understanding the visibility gap in SD-WAN environments is essential. While SD-WAN controllers provide native visibility into theoverlay network(the logical IPsec tunnels and fabric health), they often lack granular insight into the physical transport orunderlay networkprovided by ISPs or MPLS circuits.

According to the ENNA architecture guidelines, the most suitable method for measuring true SD-WAN performance is to install an agent on theunderlay network(Option D). By deploying ThousandEyes Enterprise Agents directly on the transport-facing interfaces (Transport VPN0 in Cisco SD-WAN terminology), engineers can perform hop-by-hop path visualization and measure metrics like packet loss, latency, and jitter across the actual provider path. This is critical because performance degradation in the overlay is almost always a symptom of an issue in the underlay, such as BGP routing instabilities or physical link congestion at an ISP peering point.

Deploying agents on theoverlay(Option A) only measures the performance of the tunnel itself, which may hide specific hop-level failures occurring in the public internet. Installing an agent on theLAN(Option C) orDMZ(Option B) adds local network noise to the metrics, making it harder to isolate if a problem exists within the corporate office or the service provider network. By focusing on theunderlay, the engineer ensures they have the "internet intelligence" required to hold service providers accountable to SLAs and quickly resolve connectivity issues that impact the SD-WAN fabric.

According to theDesigning and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance (300-445 ENNA)framework, application health is not just about reachability, but about the functionality of business-critical paths. For an e-commerce checkout process, which involves multiple interactive steps such as "Add to Cart," "Enter Shipping Info," and "Finalize Payment,"Transaction monitoring(Option B) is the most beneficial functionality.

Transaction tests provide a high-level view of application performance by executing a script that simulates a real user's interaction with the site's various components. UnlikeHTTP server monitoring(Option A), which merely verifies that a single URL returns a specific status code (like 200 OK), Transaction monitoring validates that the underlying application logic and database transactions are working as expected across the entire session. If a user can reach the homepage but the "Checkout" button fails due to a slow backend API call or a JavaScript error, only a Transaction test will identify the failure and provide a granular waterfall chart to show exactly where the process broke down.

WhileDNS monitoring(Option C) andRouting visibility(Option D) are crucial for identifying foundational connectivity issues, they are insufficient for monitoring complex transactional workflows. A DNS failure would prevent access to the site entirely, but a "broken" checkout process often occurs while the network and DNS appear perfectly healthy. Transaction monitoring bridges this gap by providing "layer 7" visibility into the end-to-end user experience, making it the definitive choice for e-commerce performance assurance.

According to theDesigning and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance (300-445 ENNA)curriculum, the native integration of ThousandEyes within the Meraki portfolio is specifically focused on theMeraki MXsecurity and SD-WAN appliances. This integration allows users to install ThousandEyes Enterprise Agents directly on supported Meraki MX hardware, providing critical visibility into the performance of services that distributed users rely on.4

TheMeraki MX (Option A)supports the ThousandEyes Enterprise Agent as a containerized service that can be activated with a single click within the Meraki Dashboard.5This integration is designed to provide better monitoring and testing capabilities for customers interested in improving the quality of their experience and adding the appropriate SD-WAN policies to optimize network performance. By running the agent natively on the MX, administrators can monitor the performance of external applications and services directly from the SD-WAN sites, bridging the gap between local branch health and global internet performance.6

While Cisco continues to expand its assurance integrations across the portfolio, theMR (Wireless),MS (Switching),MV (Camera), andMG (Cellular)series do not currently support the native, "on-box" execution of the ThousandEyes Enterprise Agent. For these other platforms, visibility is typically achieved through passive monitoring viaMeraki Insight (MI)or by deploying ThousandEyes agents on connected client devices (Endpoint Agents) or nearby infrastructure. Therefore, theMeraki MXis the only verified platform supporting native ThousandEyes agent deployment in this context.