RKR Certified DataCenter Professional
RCDP — EVPN-VXLAN Multi-Tenant Fabrics, Controller-Led Datacenters, and the Road to Lossless Ethernet
The blueprint
RCDP builds the engineer who can stand up and operate a production-grade, multi-tenant datacenter fabric end to end: an eBGP Clos underlay, a BGP EVPN-VXLAN overlay with symmetric IRB and Type-5 DCI, a Cisco ACI policy-driven segment, a Juniper Apstra intent-managed pod, NVMe-oF storage transport, and a PFC/ECN no-drop class ready for RDMA traffic — all rendered, deployed, and validated as code. Every claim on this poster is backed by a graded lab.
Skill domains
5 assessed domainsEVPN-VXLAN Overlay Engineering
- MP-BGP EVPN route types 1-5: advertisement, verification, mass-withdraw
- Symmetric IRB, per-VRF L3VNIs, distributed anycast gateways
- RD/RT numbering schemes and controlled inter-VRF route leaking
- EVPN Type-5 DCI: stretching tenants across sites with measured failover
Controller-Led Fabrics
- Cisco ACI policy model: tenants, EPGs, bridge domains, contracts, L3Outs
- ACI VMM integration and object-model debugging (moquery, API Inspector)
- Juniper Apstra blueprints: rack types, templates, connectivity templates
- Intent-based analytics probes, drift detection, staged day-2 change with rollback
Storage Networking & Lossless Ethernet
- NVMe/TCP and NVMe/RoCEv2 transports: queue model, discovery, ANA multipathing
- Storage segment design: dedicated VRFs, jumbo MTU, QoS marking
- PFC no-drop classes with buffer headroom; PFC-storm mitigation and watchdog
- ECN/WRED thresholds and DCQCN congestion reaction, observed under real incast
Fabric Automation & Telemetry
- Fabric-as-code: YAML source-of-truth rendered via Jinja2 and deployed with Ansible
- Idempotent ACI provisioning through the REST API from Python
- Pre/post-change validation with Nornir/NAPALM and pyATS in CI
- gNMI/OpenConfig streaming telemetry into Telegraf-InfluxDB-Grafana with alerting
Operations & Troubleshooting
- Fault gauntlet: underlay, EVPN control plane, ACI policy, and QoS faults under time SLAs
- MAC mobility, BUM forwarding, and convergence analysis in live fabrics
- MTU blackhole and NVMe-oF discovery failure diagnosis
- As-built documentation and design defense: replication mode, IRB model, DCI method
Signature labs
Rack time, not watch timeEVPN Control-Plane Dissection — capture and decode Type-2/Type-3 routes and VXLAN encapsulation on the wire
Type-5 DCI Stretch — interconnect two fabrics via border leaves, fail a DCI link, measure convergence
ACI App-Centric Build — model a three-tier application with EPGs, contracts, and an L3Out on the ACI simulator
Intent to Fabric — deploy a full EVPN-VXLAN blueprint from Juniper Apstra and hunt injected drift
Build a No-Drop Class — classify RoCEv2 into a PFC-enabled queue and prove zero drops under congestion
Fabric-as-Code — a git commit rebuilds a leaf: YAML to Jinja2 to Ansible to a verified running fabric
Fault Gauntlet — ten injected faults across the stack, scored on time-to-restore and root cause
How you are examined
RCDP-PX: 85 scenario-based theory questions, proctored, 120 minutes (pass 72%) — then an 8-hour graded practical on a live virtual pod (Nexus 9000v, vJunos, ACI simulator, Apstra): build a two-tenant EVPN-VXLAN fabric with DCI, deploy an ACI tenant, configure a lossless RoCEv2 class, and push one change through automation. Rubric-graded with fault injection; 70% overall with minimum bars per domain.
Career ladder
- Entry point (typical RCDA holder)DataCenter Network EngineerRs 8-14 LPA
- 0-12 months post-RCDPSenior DC Fabric Engineer — EVPN-VXLAN / ACIRs 14-26 LPA
- 1-3 yearsLead Fabric Engineer / Automation-First Fabric OwnerRs 26-40 LPA
- 3-5 years (RCDE / expert track)Principal DataCenter Fabric ArchitectRs 40-50 LPA (Rs 50-90+ on the expert/AI-fabric track)
Rs 14-26 LPA on certification, with a senior-track runway to Rs 26-50 LPA