An operations-first training guide for engineers building and running service provider backbone networks. 220,000+ words across 12 modules covering everything from IS-IS adjacency formation to SRv6 network programming to coherent optics at 800G.
This is a structured, self-paced curriculum designed for engineers pursuing expert-level service provider certification — or anyone who needs to understand how the world's largest networks actually work.
Every section follows the same pattern: theory → configuration (IOS-XR + Junos) → verification → troubleshooting → war stories → review questions. No vendor favoritism. No textbook abstractions. Real operational knowledge from real networks.
The expert-level service provider certification track is widely considered the hardest networking certification in existence. It covers the full stack of technologies that service providers use to build and operate backbone networks:
- Interior Gateway Protocols at continental scale (IS-IS, OSPF)
- BGP as both internet routing protocol and VPN control plane
- MPLS forwarding, label distribution, and traffic engineering
- Segment Routing (SR-MPLS and SRv6) — the modern replacement for LDP/RSVP-TE
- L3VPN and L2VPN/EVPN services that generate SP revenue
- Optical transport (DWDM, OTN, coherent optics)
- 5G transport and network slicing
- Automation via YANG, NETCONF, gNMI, streaming telemetry
The Juniper equivalent covers comparable depth from the Junos perspective. This guide covers both platforms side by side.
Operations-first. Every section starts with "why does this exist and when does it break" — not "RFC 4271 defines BGP as..." Theory serves operations, not the other way around.
Dual-vendor. IOS-XR and Junos configurations presented in parallel. Most SP networks run both. You should be fluent in both.
War stories. Each section includes at least one real-world incident — a misconfiguration that took down a metro ring, a label leak that propagated across continents, a DIS election that created phantom blackholes. These aren't hypothetical. Learning from failures is faster than learning from theory.
Progressive depth. Modules build on each other. IGP → BGP → MPLS → TE → SR → VPN services → transport → slicing → automation → design. The dependency chain is deliberate.
Exam-ready but not exam-limited. This guide will prepare you for expert-level SP lab exams, but the goal isn't to pass a test — it's to be the engineer who gets called at 2 AM when a core router is dropping traffic and nobody else can figure out why.
| Module | Topic | Sections | Words | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Foundations | 1 | 6,200 | ~37 min |
| 02 | IGP at Scale | 4 | 9,000 | ~52 min |
| 03 | BGP at SP Scale | 4 | 10,900 | ~64 min |
| 04 | MPLS Core Operations | 4 | 14,100 | ~84 min |
| 05 | Traffic Engineering | 4 | 12,500 | ~73 min |
| 06 | Segment Routing | 6 | 23,600 | ~140 min |
| 07 | L3VPN Services | 5 | 25,200 | ~150 min |
| 08 | L2VPN & EVPN | 5 | 27,100 | ~161 min |
| 09 | Transport & Optical | 5 | 27,600 | ~164 min |
| 10 | Network Slicing & 5G | 3 | 15,900 | ~95 min |
| 11 | Automation & Telemetry | 5 | 18,700 | ~111 min |
| 12 | Design Case Studies | 5 | 29,300 | ~175 min |
| Total | 51 | 220,000+ | ~22 hours |
The practice-exams/ directory contains 130 IE-SP-level questions with detailed answer explanations:
- Module-specific question banks (BGP, SR, L3VPN, EVPN)
- Full 50-question mixed mock exam
- Dual Opus-reviewed for accuracy (multiple CRITICAL corrections applied — RFC 4724, RFC 4577, IS-IS auth scope, TI-LFA defaults)
The tts/ directory contains tools to generate a spoken-word audio version of the entire guide:
- Pronunciation dictionary — 80+ SP protocol acronyms mapped to phonetic spellings
- Pipeline scripts — automated markdown-to-speech conversion
- Voice — Kokoro TTS, custom voice blend at 1.1x speed
- Format — MP3 at 128kbps for universal device compatibility
Estimated full audio library: ~22 hours, ~300MB.
01 → 02 → 03 → 04 → 07 → 08 → 05 → 06 → 09 → 10 → 11 → 12
If you're strong in BGP/MPLS, skim 02-04 and spend depth on 07-11. The VPN services and modern transport modules are where enterprise knowledge has the biggest gaps.
01 → 02 → 03 → 04 → 05 → 06 → 07 → 08 → 09 → 10 → 11 → 12
Full linear order, no skips. Complete review questions and lab exercises after each module. The practice exams are calibrated to lab-exam difficulty.
05 → 06 → 08 → 09 → 10 → 11 → 07 → 12
You know MPLS and BGP. Start with TE evolution (RSVP-TE → SR-TE), then EVPN, transport, slicing, and automation. Revisit 02/03 only when troubleshooting dependencies surface.
- Solid IP routing fundamentals (SPF, link-state concepts, subnetting)
- CLI comfort on at least one platform (IOS-XR or Junos)
- Basic MPLS awareness (what a label is, what push/swap/pop means)
- Module dependencies are listed at the top of each section
| RFC | Topic |
|---|---|
| 1195 | IS-IS for IP |
| 4271 | BGP-4 |
| 3031 | MPLS Architecture |
| 4364 | L3VPN (BGP/MPLS IP VPNs) |
| 7432 | EVPN |
| 8402 | Segment Routing Architecture |
| 8986 | SRv6 Network Programming |
| 9252 | BGP Overlay Services (SRv6) |
| 8405 | SPF Back-Off Algorithm |
| 5305 | IS-IS Extensions for TE |
- LAB-ENVIRONMENT.md — Lab topology and platform requirements
- SOURCES.md — References and source material
- STUDY-PATH.md — Detailed study sequencing
- PLAN.md — Curriculum development plan
Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. See LICENSE for details.