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Study Plan

Goal: CCNP Enterprise (ENCOR plus ENARSI) in about 6 months, with ENSLD as an optional 2 more months. Start any week; the plan counts weeks, not dates.

Assumed pace: 8 to 10 hours a week, split roughly 40% reading, 40% lab, 20% practice questions. The plan assumes you already work with this gear, so it spends less time on what most engineers use daily (OSPF, BGP, trunks, ACLs) and more on what they rarely touch (SD-WAN and SD-Access internals, LISP/VXLAN, YANG, EEM, multicast, MPLS L3VPN, DMVPN phases).

How long each exam takes

Exam Working engineer (this plan) Newer to the material Why
ENCOR 350-401 13 weeks (about 3 months) 20 to 24 weeks (5 to 6 months) Widest blueprint: architecture, virtualization, assurance, security and automation as well as routing and switching
ENARSI 300-410 12 weeks (about 3 months), including a retake buffer 16 weeks (about 4 months) Narrower but deeper; builds directly on ENCOR's routing, so starting right after ENCOR saves time
ENSLD 300-420 (optional) 8 weeks (about 2 months) 12 weeks (about 3 months) Reuses ENCOR and ENARSI content; the new skill is choosing between designs

Studying fewer hours a week? Stretch each phase in proportion: at 5 hours a week, ENCOR takes closer to 6 months. Booking each exam for the end of its phase keeps the plan honest.

Why ENCOR first

ENCOR is the broader exam and covers the foundations ENARSI troubleshoots in depth (OSPF, BGP, ACLs, CoPP, IP SLA, NetFlow). Studying ENCOR first means ENARSI becomes depth on familiar ground.

Phase 1: ENCOR 350-401 (13 weeks)

Week Blueprint Topics Deliverable
1 1.1 to 1.3 Design tiers, HA (FHRP, SSO/NSF), SD-WAN planes, SD-Access fabric roles Architecture quiz 80%+
2 1.4, 2.1 to 2.3 QoS interpretation, hypervisors, VRF, GRE, IPsec, LISP, VXLAN GRE over IPsec lab with VRF
3 3.1 802.1Q and DTP, EtherChannel (LACP/PAgP), RSTP, MST MST multi-instance lab
4 3.2.a, 3.2.b EIGRP vs OSPF, OSPFv2/v3 network types, LSAs, areas Dual-stack OSPF lab
5 3.2.c, 3.2.d eBGP neighbors, path attributes, PBR eBGP and PBR lab
6 3.3 NTP/PTP, NAT/PAT, HSRP/VRRP, multicast (PIM SM, IGMP, SSM, bidir, MSDP, RPF) NAT and HSRP lab
7 4.1 to 4.4 Debugs, SNMP, syslog, Flexible NetFlow, SPAN/RSPAN/ERSPAN, IP SLA Light week: catch up on anything behind
8 4.5, 4.6, 5.1 Catalyst Center, NETCONF/RESTCONF, lines, local auth, AAA RESTCONF query lab
9 5.2 to 5.4 ACLs, CoPP, REST API security, threat defense, NGFW, TrustSec, MACsec CoPP lab
10 6.1 to 6.7 Python, JSON, YANG, Catalyst Center and SD-WAN Manager APIs, REST codes, EEM, Ansible vs Puppet/Chef EEM applet lab
11 All Review weak domains, ENCOR practice exam 1 Light week: catch up on anything behind
12 All Remediate, ENCOR practice exam 2 Practice exam 85%+
13 All Cram sheet review, sit ENCOR ENCOR

Phase 2: ENARSI 300-410 (12 weeks)

Week Blueprint Topics Deliverable
1 1.1 to 1.4 Administrative distance, route maps, loop prevention (tags, split horizon, filtering), redistribution Two-point redistribution loop lab
2 1.5 to 1.8 Summarization, PBR, VRF-Lite, BFD VRF-Lite with BFD lab
3 1.9 EIGRP: named mode, neighbors, auth, FS/FD/RD, SIA, stubs, variance EIGRP break/fix lab
4 1.10 OSPF: adjacency failures, auth, network/area/router types, path preference OSPF break/fix lab
5 1.11 BGP: neighbors, best path, route reflectors, policies BGP break/fix lab
6 2.1 to 2.3 MPLS, L3VPN (RD, RT, VPNv4), DMVPN phases, NHRP, IPsec profiles DMVPN phase 3 lab
7 3.1 to 3.4 AAA, ACLs (time-based), IPv6 filters, uRPF, CoPP, IPv6 first hop security Security break/fix lab
8 4.1 to 4.7 Device management, SNMP, logging, DHCPv4/v6, IP SLA, NetFlow, Catalyst Center assurance DHCPv6 and IP SLA lab
9 All ENARSI practice exams 1 and 2, timed troubleshooting drills Practice exam 85%+
10 All Cram sheet review, sit ENARSI ENARSI
11 to 12 Buffer for a retake if needed CCNP Enterprise

Phase 3 (optional): ENSLD 300-420 (8 weeks)

ENSLD is a second concentration exam. It is not needed for CCNP Enterprise once ENARSI is passed, but it earns the Cisco Certified Specialist, Enterprise Design and reuses almost everything from phases 1 and 2. Most of the work is learning to choose between designs, so the weekly rhythm swaps labs for the design exercises and case studies.

Week Blueprint Topics Deliverable
1 Rest week after ENARSI
2 1.1 to 1.4 Addressing plans, IS-IS, EIGRP and OSPF design Addressing and Routing quiz 80%+
3 1.5, 1.6 BGP design, IPv6 migration Case studies 01 and 02
4 2.1 to 2.3 Campus HA, Layer 2 design, multicampus Layer 3 Case study 03
5 2.4, 2.5 SD-Access architecture and fabric design Case study 04
6 3.1 to 3.5 WAN options, VPN design, WAN HA, SD-WAN Case studies 05 and 06
7 4.1 to 5.6 QoS, management, multicast, YANG, telemetry, cloud Case studies 07 and 08, ENSLD practice exam 85%+
8 All Cram sheet review, sit ENSLD ENSLD

Blueprint changes

Cisco moved ENCOR to v1.2 in March 2026. ENARSI is v1.1 as of October 2026. Check the official exam pages monthly; when Cisco announces a new blueprint version, the matching modules here are updated.

Weekly rhythm

  • Mon/Tue: read the module, write your own notes on anything new.
  • Wed/Thu: build the lab, then break it and fix it.
  • Fri: practice questions. Anything under 80% goes on your weak-topics list.
  • Weekend: 30 minutes re-reading the weak-topics list and the cram sheet.

Booking the exams

Book ENCOR for the end of Phase 1 as soon as you start. A booked date is the best schedule enforcer, and Pearson VUE rescheduling is free if done more than 48 hours before the appointment (check the current policy when booking).