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Grading Rubric

Criterion Strong (3) Adequate (2) Weak (1)
Identified misleading symptom Quickly isolated the latency to the network path (not the app) using curl timing and traceroute Checked the app first, then pivoted to network after seeing curl latency Spent extended time profiling the application or contacting the partner
Found root cause in networking domain Identified the BGP prefix-list filter forcing traffic through a congested transit path Found the bad route but not the specific prefix-list causing it Assumed it was an ISP outage or general network congestion
Remediated in security domain Replaced the prefix-list with a proper inbound ACL that achieves the security intent Removed the prefix-list but did not implement the security control Only removed the prefix-list without considering the security requirement
Cross-domain thinking Explained the full chain: security ticket -> misimplemented as BGP filter -> bad route -> latency visible in observability Acknowledged the security/networking interaction but missed the observability misdirection Treated it as a single-domain networking or application problem

Prerequisite Topic Packs

  • observability-deep-dive — needed for Domain A investigation (latency metrics, SLO burn rates)
  • bgp-evpn-vxlan — needed for Domain B root cause (BGP route selection, prefix-lists, AS paths)
  • routing — needed for Domain B (traceroute analysis, route tables)
  • firewalls — needed for Domain C remediation (ACL design, inbound vs outbound filtering)
  • networking-troubleshooting — needed for cross-domain understanding (curl timing, traceroute)