CVA-101 - SIP Fundamentals

Course code	CVA-101
Track	CVA - Certified VoIP Associate
Level	Foundation (lower half)
Prerequisites	None. A working knowledge of TCP/IP, DNS, and basic networking is assumed.
Total commitment	~9–10 hours (5h video, 2h reading, 2–3h labs & quizzes)
Format	Self-paced LMS, text-first lessons, PCAP-driven labs, AI tutor on every page
Assessment	7 module quizzes (open book, 80% pass) + CVA exam block (proctored)
Primary RFCs	3261, 3263, 3264, 3265, 3550 (intro), 3261 §22 (digest auth)

What you'll be able to do

By the end of CVA-101 you will be able to:

• Read any SIP message and explain every header line, including which are mandatory, which are optional, and what their absence implies.
• Walk a complete INVITE–200 OK–ACK–BYE flow on a whiteboard from memory and explain the transaction state at each step.
• Distinguish hop-by-hop responses (e.g. 100 Trying) from end-to-end responses, and explain why 100 Trying is never forwarded by a stateful proxy.
• Read a digest authentication challenge and response correctly, and explain why MD5 is still in the standard.
• Trace a REGISTER flow, identify the bindings, and explain how Expires, Contact, and Path interact.
• Read a basic SDP offer/answer, identify codec preference order, and reason about media direction (sendrecv, sendonly, recvonly, inactive).
• Diagnose the most common SIP-layer failure modes (no 100 Trying, retransmitting INVITE, wrong-direction 488, 480 vs 503, BYE without prior 200) from a PCAP.
• Pass the CVA-101 portion of the CVA exam block.

Module map

#	Module	Lessons	Lab?	Quiz?
0	Pre-flight primer (free preview)	3	No	Self-check
1	SIP Architecture and the Signaling Plane	4	No	10 Q
2	SIP Messages: Requests, Responses, Headers	5	Lab 2.1 (header read)	10 Q
3	Methods and Response Codes	5	No	10 Q
4	Transactions, Dialogs, and Call Flows	6	Lab 4.1 (full call PCAP)	10 Q
5	Registration and Authentication	5	Lab 5.1 (REGISTER + auth)	10 Q
6	SDP Basics and Media Negotiation	5	Lab 6.1 (offer/answer)	10 Q
7	Troubleshooting at the SIP Layer	4	Lab 7.1 (failure-mode trace)	10 Q
8	CVA Exam Prep + Practice	4	Lab 8.1 (mixed PCAP)	Practice exam
Totals		41 lessons	6 labs	7 graded + practice

How the labs work

Every lab is a sanitised real-world PCAP from a production scenario, paired with a structured walk-through. There is no live sandbox at the CVA-101 level - live labs are a CVP-tier feature - because at the foundation level fluency at reading a trace matters more than fluency at clicking through a vendor admin UI.

Each lab takes 20–40 minutes and ends with five guided questions that the AI tutor will check your answers to. You can re-run any lab as many times as you like.

What's included

• All 41 lessons, perpetually accessible while your subscription or course access is active
• 6 sanitised PCAP labs with structured walk-throughs
• 120-question CVA exam item bank (drawn from for the proctored final)
• AI tutor on every lesson, with full course context
• CVA-101 module quizzes - unlimited retakes
• One CVA exam attempt + one free retake on fail
• Verifiable certificate at siptrain.com/verify/[id]