Scenario-Based Quizzes: A New Way to Prep for CCIE & CCDE

Rethinking Advanced Certification Prep

Passing Cisco’s most advanced certification exams - like the CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure Lab Exam and the Cisco Certified Design Expert (CCDE) Practical Exam - requires more than technical knowledge. In order to succeed, candidates must analyze complex business requirements, weigh trade-offs, and design solutions that work in real-world environments - skills that can’t be developed through hands-on labs and CLI configuration practice alone.

To address this gap in learning, we’ve created a new approach: scenario-based quizzes. This format moves beyond traditional videos and labs, offering a focused, efficient, and realistic way to practice the skills needed to succeed on Cisco’s expert-level exams.

Why a New Format?

Today’s CCIE Lab Exams are divided into two parts: a 3-hour Design Module, which focuses on analyzing and validating network designs, and a 5-hour Deploy, Operate & Optimize (Configuration) Module, focused on hands-on implementation and troubleshooting. In order to achieve the coveted CCIE status, candidates must pass both the Design and Configuration Modules. The CCDE Practical, meanwhile, is an entirely design-driven exam.

Traditional implementation & troubleshooting walkthrough videos - along with hands-on lab practice - are great for the configuration side, but they don’t fully prepare candidates for the design portions of these exams. Instead of asking candidates to enter CLI commands to build or fix configurations, the design portions of the exams test the ability to:

• Interpret business and technical requirements

• Evaluate trade-offs across multiple technologies

• Design scalable, secure, and efficient networks

• Respond to outages and failures at a strategic level

Candidates must work through complex scenarios in uncertain conditions, which requires not only technical knowledge, but also critical thinking and high-level reasoning. Traditionally, these skills could only be developed through years of real-world experience, leaving a gap in how learners could prepare for these design-focused exams. In order to address this challenge, we’ve developed a new training format to help provide the design-level practice that traditional methods can’t deliver.

Introducing INE’s Scenario-Based Quizzes

Built specifically to practice design-level thinking, the Enterprise Network Design Scenarios course is the first INE release in this new format. This course provides a structured way for CCIE and CCDE candidates to not only test their technical knowledge, but to also develop the analytical and decision-making skills required to succeed on these exams.

Here’s what makes it different:

• Quiz-Only Format: No videos. No labs. Just immersive, scenario-driven practice.

• Exam-Style Delivery: Scenarios replicate the CCIE/CCDE exam format using mock email threads, diagrams, and CLI outputs that build a realistic narrative

• Decision-Making Practice: Learners must choose between multiple valid solutions, practicing the trade-off analysis that the exams emphasize

• Realistic Exam Relevance: Scenarios mirror the depth and challenge of the CCIE/CCDE exams by reflecting real use-cases such as brownfield migrations, technology integrations & optimizations, and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) after major network outages

• Streamlined Experience: Learners focus purely on analysis and decision-making, not on configuring technical environments

What Learners Can Expect

Each scenario in this course features 10 in-depth, exam-style questions that push far beyond standard multiple choice. These scenarios require candidates to apply design-level reasoning across complex, multi-layered solutions using Layer 2 protocols, IP routing with EIGRP, OSPF, BGP, and MPLS, software-defined networking with SD-WAN, network security, and more. 

In this course, learners will:

• Synthesize data from email communications, diagrams, and CLI outputs

• Evaluate existing designs to identify strengths, weaknesses, and recommend migration paths

• Translate business and technical needs into viable network solutions

• Compare design options and assess trade-offs across performance, scalability, and security

• Analyze failures, diagnose outages, and propose design solutions at both a technical and architectural level

By working through these scenarios, learners simulate the decision-making workflows they’ll face in Cisco’s expert-level exams, and in real-world enterprise architecture roles.

Who This Course Is For

This course is ideal for:

• Mid-to-advanced learners preparing for the CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure Lab Exam

• Candidates pursuing the Cisco Certified Design Expert (CCDE) Certification

• Network engineers and architects who want to sharpen their design-level thinking

This course doesn’t replace a full learning path. Instead, it’s a supplemental tool - perfect for learners who want targeted, exam-style practice they can fit into their schedules.

Key Benefits of Scenario-Based Quizzes

• Realistic Practice: Scenarios are based on real enterprise use cases, not abstract theory

• Efficiency: Scenarios can be completed in shorter sessions, making study easier to fit into busy schedules

• Exam Alignment: Content is tightly mapped to CCIE and CCDE requirements, so learners focus on what matters most

• Flexibility: Quiz-based design lets learners revisit questions and test reasoning under different conditions
  
  

Innovating Cisco Exam Prep

The path to becoming a CCIE or CCDE has never been simple, but it can be focused and achievable. INE’s scenario-based quizzes offer a new way forward: streamlined, realistic, and centered on the exact skills that expert-level Cisco exams require. If you are preparing for the CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure or CCDE certifications, this course will help you build critical thinking skills and practice under conditions that feel like the real exam, without the years of trial-and-error it once required.

👉  Start your first scenario today and experience the future of CCIE/CCDE prep.