Cisco ENCOR Practice Exam 2026 – All-in-One Comprehensive Guide to Mastering Enterprise Network Core Technologies!

NETCONF is a network management protocol that primarily utilizes XML (eXtensible Markup Language) as its data format for communications between the client and server. XML is critical because it allows for a structured and hierarchical way of organizing data, making it easier to navigate and manipulate the various configurations and operational state data in networking devices.

In addition to XML, NETCONF support for JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) has become more prominent as JSON's lightweight format makes it efficient for data interchange in many applications, including network management. JSON's ease of use and readability contribute to its popularity and increasing adoption alongside XML in modern network automation and management tasks.

Other formats, such as CSV, YAML, HTML, binary, or ASCII, do not align with the standard practices for NETCONF, which focuses on structured and machine-readable formats like XML and JSON to ensure effective communication and configuration management in network devices.