400-007 Cisco Certified Design Expert (CCDE v3.1) Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

A (Scaling challenges for services):Centralized SDN controllers may experience scalability challenges for distributed services like DHCP and load balancing since these often require real-time responsiveness and distributed service locality.

D (Latency in reactive handling):Centralized controllers may introduce additional latency during reactive PACKET_IN event handling as control decisions traverse the control plane before forwarding happens.

Other options explained:

B: Centralized controllers still present failure domain risks; high-availability must be explicitly designed.

C: Smart NICs operate primarily at the host level, often independently of centralized SDN controllers.

E: Legacy equipment often lacks support for many SDN southbound APIs.

C (Complex and distributed management flow):SDN centralizes control-plane management, simplifying complex, distributed configuration and operational models, which is especially valuable in large-scale, dynamic cloud environments.

Other options explained:

A: SDN may assist, but intelligent monitoring is a separate operational task.

B: SDN does not directly address resource growth—it supports scalability but doesn’t limit application resource demands.

D: SDN may reduce OpEx, but the primary benefit is operational simplification rather than direct cost reduction.

==========