CCNP Enterprise Exam Topics Explained

What the ENCOR 350-401 core and each CCNP Enterprise concentration exam actually test, how the v1.2 blueprint changed, and how to read the topic list.

Liam Anderson14 June 2026 · 10 min read

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Diagram of the ENCOR core exam as a central gear meshing with one selected concentration exam gear to form CCNP Enterprise

Two exams stand between you and the Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) Enterprise certification: the 350-401 ENCOR core exam, which every candidate takes, and one concentration exam that you choose from a menu of specialisations. What those two exams cover — and how the March 2026 blueprint update changed it — is the subject of this article. By the end you should know what ENCOR tests in practice, what each concentration is really about, and how to read Cisco's official topic lists like an examiner rather than a tourist.

One scoping note up front: this is the "what is tested" article. How to schedule your preparation around work is handled in the CCNP Enterprise study plan for working professionals, and how hard the material feels by background is assessed in How Hard Is the CCNP Enterprise Exam?.

How the certification is structured

The structure drives everything else, so it is worth being precise:

Core exam — 350-401 ENCOR (Implementing Cisco Enterprise Network Core Technologies): 120 minutes, US $400 (fees vary by country and region). Compulsory for every CCNP Enterprise candidate.
One concentration exam: 90 minutes, US $300, chosen from the current roster — advanced routing, SD-WAN, design, wireless and automation options exist as of 2026.

Passing both earns the CCNP Enterprise certification, valid for three years and renewable through Continuing Education credits (80 for CCNP), exams, or a mix. Two side effects of the structure are easy to miss. Each exam you pass grants a Cisco Certified Specialist certification in its own right, so your progress is credentialed even between exams. And ENCOR doubles as the qualifying exam for the CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure lab — the same paper serves both the professional and expert tracks.

There is no formal prerequisite: you do not need an active CCNA to book ENCOR, although Cisco suggests three to five years of enterprise networking experience, and the exams assume it. For the broader picture of cost, format and where this certification sits in Cisco's ladder, the CCNP Enterprise certification guide is the companion piece; whether the investment makes sense for your career is a separate question, answered in Is CCNP Worth It for Network Engineers?.

The ENCOR 350-401 core exam: what it actually tests

ENCOR is the broad exam of the pair. Its remit is the whole enterprise network core: how campus and WAN infrastructures are architected, virtualised, secured, monitored and automated. Cisco publishes the authoritative domain-by-domain topic list as a PDF — the current version is exam topics v1.2 — and that document, not any third-party summary, should be the spine of your preparation. Cisco does not publish question counts or passing scores for its professional-level exams, so treat any specific numbers you see quoted as community estimates.

The v1.2 update: what changed and why it matters

Blueprint versions matter more than most candidates realise, because study materials go stale quietly. The current ENCOR blueprint is v1.2: the last day to test on v1.1 was 18 March 2026, and v1.2 testing began on 19 March 2026. Two changes define it:

Wireless left the core. ENCOR v1.2 removes wireless content from the core exam; wireless now lives in the dedicated wireless concentrations and the CCIE Enterprise Wireless track. If your study notes or video course spend hours on wireless architecture for ENCOR, they were written for v1.1 — check the rest of them against the current PDF before trusting anything.
SD-WAN, automation and AI-assisted operations grew. The v1.2 blueprint increases emphasis on SD-WAN, network automation and AI-assisted operations, continuing the direction Cisco has pushed across its portfolio. The message to candidates is blunt: a purely CLI-era preparation no longer matches the exam's centre of gravity.

Reading the ENCOR themes like an examiner

Rather than reproduce the topic list — Cisco's PDF does that with legal precision — here is how to interpret its recurring themes:

Architecture and design concepts test whether you understand why enterprise networks are built the way they are: redundancy models, campus and WAN design trade-offs, and where overlays fit. Expect to reason about designs, not just recall them.
Infrastructure is the traditional heartland — routing protocols, switching behaviour, and the services that ride on them. This is where experienced engineers score, and where gaps in fundamentals get exposed under time pressure.
Virtualisation and overlay technologies cover the abstractions modern enterprises run on, including the SD-WAN emphasis v1.2 strengthened. Candidates from stable, traditional environments often underestimate this area.
Security appears as an integrated concern — securing the network infrastructure itself — rather than the product-focused depth of the separate CCNP Security track.
Automation and programmability test APIs, configuration management concepts and the operational tooling around them, now with AI-assisted operations in scope. For engineers who have avoided scripting, this is reliably the most alien domain and deserves early attention, not a final-week cram.

A practical habit: work through the official PDF line by line and sort every bullet into "can do at a console", "can explain but not do", and "cannot explain". The blueprint's verbs are the tell — a line beginning configure or troubleshoot is fair game for lab-style scrutiny, while describe or explain signals conceptual questioning. Your study time should flow to the first two piles, weighted by those verbs.

The concentration exams: your one big choice

The concentration is where you shape the certification. Each is a 90-minute exam focused on one specialisation, and you need exactly one. Cisco adjusts the roster over time, so confirm the live list on the CCNP Enterprise page before booking — but as of 2026 the options include the following.

Exam	Code	Focus	Best suited to
ENARSI	300-410	Advanced routing and services	Core engineers and escalation-level troubleshooters
ENSDWI	300-415	Cisco SD-WAN implementation	WAN, MSP and partner-delivery engineers
ENSLD	300-420	Enterprise network design	Engineers moving towards architecture
ENWLSD	300-425	Wireless network design	Wireless specialists (design side)
ENWLSI	300-430	Wireless implementation	Wireless specialists (deployment side)
ENAUTO	300-435	Network automation	Engineers building programmability skills

300-410 ENARSI: the default for a reason

ENARSI — Implementing Cisco Enterprise Advanced Routing and Services — is the most popular concentration, and the natural pick if you want the certification to say "deep routing competence". It extends the routing material ENCOR introduces into advanced protocol behaviour, redistribution, VPN services and the infrastructure services wrapped around them, with a heavy troubleshooting flavour. If your day job involves being the person called when routing misbehaves, ENARSI certifies exactly that. Working a bank of ENARSI 300-410 practice questions domain by domain is a good way to find out early whether your troubleshooting instincts match the exam's expectations.

300-415 ENSDWI: the SD-WAN specialisation

ENSDWI covers implementing Cisco's SD-WAN solution — the overlay architecture, controllers, policies and migration work that WAN transformation projects live on. Because v1.2 ENCOR already leans further into SD-WAN, pairing it with ENSDWI produces a strongly WAN-flavoured certification, popular with managed-service and partner engineers who deploy these solutions for clients.

300-420 ENSLD: design over implementation

ENSLD — Designing Cisco Enterprise Networks — swaps configuration depth for design judgement: translating requirements into topologies, choosing technologies, and defending trade-offs. It suits engineers deliberately steering towards architect roles, where the deliverable is a design document rather than a working config.

300-425 ENWLSD and 300-430 ENWLSI: the wireless pair

The two wireless concentrations split the discipline into design (ENWLSD — surveys, RF planning, architecture) and implementation (ENWLSI — deploying and operating the wireless infrastructure). With wireless now removed from the ENCOR core, these exams are where Cisco's enterprise wireless content lives at professional level; choosing one is a statement of specialisation, not a supplement to the core.

300-435 ENAUTO: networking meets programmability

ENAUTO covers automating enterprise networks — APIs, scripting concepts and automation platforms applied to the enterprise stack. It suits engineers adding programmability to a networking profile. If automation is your primary career direction rather than an extension, note that Cisco also runs a dedicated Automation certification track (the renamed DevNet programme, rebranded in February 2026), which may fit better than an enterprise concentration.

Which concentration serves which career is a decision this article deliberately leaves at one line per exam — the role-by-role mapping lives in What Jobs Can You Get With CCNP Enterprise?.

Format, logistics and the rules around the topics

A few mechanics shape how the topics get tested:

Question styles. Cisco professional-level exams mix question formats; it does not publish per-exam question counts or passing scores, so calibrate with timed practice rather than chasing unofficial numbers.
Timing. ENCOR gives you 120 minutes for a very broad blueprint; concentrations give 90 minutes for a narrow, deep one. The core punishes shallow breadth-gaps; concentrations punish missing depth. Your preparation should mirror that asymmetry.
Booking and retakes. Exams are delivered through Pearson VUE, at test centres or via OnVUE online proctoring. A failed written exam means a five-calendar-day wait and the full fee again — no refunds or retake discounts.
Order. Nothing requires ENCOR first. Most candidates take it first because it lays the foundations, but a specialist with deep SD-WAN experience could reasonably clear ENSDWI early for the Specialist badge and momentum. Sequencing strategy is covered properly in the study plan for working professionals.

Common mistakes when working from the exam topics

Candidates fail blueprints more often than they fail content. The recurring errors:

Studying to an outdated blueprint. The v1.1-to-v1.2 transition in March 2026 changed real content — wireless out, automation and AI-assisted operations up. Always download the current topic PDF from Cisco and audit your materials against it before you start.
Treating every bullet as equal. Blueprint verbs encode depth. Grinding describe-level items to configuration depth while skimming troubleshoot-level items inverts the exam's priorities.
Ignoring the automation domain until the end. For traditionally-trained engineers it is the least familiar material and the most tempting to defer. It is also structurally growing. Front-load it.
Choosing a concentration by rumoured ease. A concentration misaligned with your experience is harder in practice and less useful afterwards. Pick for your target role, not for forum folklore.
Memorising practice answers instead of measuring domains. Practice questions earn their keep as instrumentation: sit them timed, score by topic area, and route study hours to the weakest domains. Re-seeing the same questions until the score flatters you measures memory, not readiness. ExamPractice offers free sample questions on its ENCOR 350-401 exam page, with fuller question sets and a timed practice-test simulation available to subscribers — use the timed mode as a readiness benchmark, not a question bank to learn by rote.

Turning the topic list into a preparation map

Here is a compact sequence for converting what this article covers into an actionable start:

Download the current ENCOR v1.2 topic list from Cisco's exam-topics library and confirm any course or book you buy states v1.2 coverage.
Choose your concentration against your two-year career target, then download its topic list too — planning both exams together prevents duplicated effort on overlapping ground.
Audit yourself against the blueprints using the three-pile method above (can do / can explain / cannot explain), letting the verbs set the required depth.
Benchmark with a timed practice set to test whether your self-audit was honest — engineers reliably overrate the domains they use daily and underrate the ones they merely recognise.
Hand the results to a schedule. From this point the work is calendar management, and that is the study plan article's job, not this one's.

Frequently asked questions

How many questions are on the ENCOR exam and what score passes?

Cisco does not publish question counts or passing scores for ENCOR or the concentration exams. Any specific figures circulating online are community estimates. Prepare against the topic list and use timed practice for calibration instead of anchoring to unofficial numbers.

Do the exam topics overlap between ENCOR and the concentrations?

By design, the core introduces breadth that concentrations then deepen — ENCOR's routing coverage flows into ENARSI, its SD-WAN coverage into ENSDWI. That is an argument for planning both blueprints together and, for most candidates, taking ENCOR first while the foundations are fresh.

Did ENCOR really drop wireless?

Yes. The v1.2 exam topics, live from 19 March 2026, removed wireless from the core exam; wireless content now sits in the ENWLSD/ENWLSI concentrations and the CCIE Enterprise Wireless track. Materials that still teach wireless "for ENCOR" predate the update.

Can the concentration roster change while I am studying?

It can — Cisco adds, revises and retires concentration exams over time, which is why this article says "options include" rather than promising a fixed list. Check the live roster on Cisco's CCNP Enterprise page before booking, especially if your preparation will span many months.

Where do I find every current Cisco exam in one place?

Cisco's certification site is the official source; for practice purposes, ExamPractice's Cisco exams hub lists its Cisco exam pages, including the CCNP Enterprise core and concentration exams.

Exam facts in this guide were checked against official certification-provider pages on 30 August 2026. Fees, exam codes and policies change — confirm on the provider’s own site before you book.