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Network Fundamentals: Top Picks

Network Fundamentals
A MAC address, or Media Access Control address, is a unique identifier assigned to a network interface controller (NIC) for use as a network addres…
Network Fundamentals
A long-long time ago (not long ago in earth time) 100 Mbps was THE technology. 100 Mbps uplinks bundled with ether-channel was the ultimate uplink te…
Network Fundamentals
Unicast is a communication method used in computer networking where data is sent from a single sender to a specific destination device. In this…
Network Fundamentals
Multicast is a communication method used in computer networking where data is sent from a single sender to a group of destination devices. In this m…

Featured Subcategories:

Netflow Articles:

Netflow
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) and Netflow are both popular protocols with admins, prized for their ability to give visibility over the ne…
Netflow
In this article, we explore the core principles of bandwidth management and examine how modern network monitoring technologies can assist in maintain…
Netflow
In our previous article we explained how a Netflow Analyzer can help you gain visibility into your user traffic, application traffic and data flows w…
Netflow
This article explores how machine learning (ML) and network flow telemetry can be used to establish behavioral baselines, detect anomalous asset acti…

Network Protocols:

Subnetting
There is always that day when you are called upon to provide a solution to a network problem. The number of problems that can occur in a network are…
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
Our fifth section contains some very interesting fields that are used by the TCP transport protocol. We see how TCP helps control how much data is tr…
Subnetting
This free online Subnet Calculator provides a fast and easy way to calculate all aspects of any IP Address and Subnet Mask. Simply enter your desir…
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
This article shows the TCP Header and Segment. We explain where the TCP Header and Segment are located in an Ethernet frame and also briefly view the…
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
Finally, the last page of our incredible TCP Analysis. As most of you would expect, this section is dedicated to the DATA section that follows the TC…
Subnetting
So we have covered to some depth the subnetting topic, but there is still much to learn ! We are going to explain here the available subnet masks and…
Supernetting & CIDR
Our previous article served as an introduction to Supernetting, also known as Route Summarization. We covered the concept of Supernetting, how it wor…
Domain Name System (DNS)
If you ever wondered where DNS came from, this is your chance to find out ! The quick summary on DNS's history will also help you understand why DNS…

STP/ICMP Protocols:

ICMP Protocol
The ICMP - Source Quench message is one that can be generated by either a gateway or host. You won't see any such message pop up on your workstation…
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)
One of the most used terms in network is LAN (Local Area Network). It’s a form of network that we encounter in our daily lives, at home, at work, stu…
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)
Spanning Tree Protocol, Rapid STP port costs and port states are an essential part of the STP algorithm that affect how STP decides to forward or blo…
ICMP Protocol
The 'ICMP Destination unreachable' message is quite interesting, because it doesn't actually contain one message, but infact six! This means that the…

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VLAN Networks
Designing and building a network is not a simple job. VLANs are no exception to this rule, in fact they require a more sophisticated approach because of t…
VLAN Networks
We mentioned that Trunk Links are designed to pass frames (packets) from all VLANs, allowing us to connect multiple switches together and independently co…
VLAN Networks
Deciding whether to use ISL or IEEE 802.1q to power your trunk links can be quite confusing if you cannot identify the advantages and disadvantages of eac…
VLAN Networks
We hear about them everywhere, vendors around the world are constantly trying to push them into every type of network and as a result, the Local Area Netw…

Routing
This article explains how OSPF uses Link State Advertisement (LSA) to exchange information about the network topology between routers. When a router recei…
Routing
This is the third article of our OSPF series which analyzes the different OSPF States routers go through during the OSPF discovery and neighbor forming pr…
Routing
Our previous article explained the purpose of Link State Update (LSU) packets and examined the Link State Advertisement (LSA) information contained within…
Routing
Distance Vector, Link State RIP, IGRP, EIGRP, OSPF Routing protocols were created for routers. These protocols have been designed to allow the exchange…

Network Address Translation - NAT
Static NAT (also called inbound mapping) is the first mode we're going to talk about and also happens to be the most uncommon between smaller networks. S…
Network Address Translation - NAT
The previous page (Static NAT - Part 1) helped us understand what exactly happens with Static NAT and how it works, and we saw a few examples of how to us…
Network Address Translation - NAT
After that simple and informative introduction to the NAT concept, it's time to find out more about how it works and this is where the NAT table comes in…
Network Address Translation - NAT
In our previous article, Network Address Translation (NAT) Overload - Part 1, we explained what NAT Overload is and how it works. This page deals with the…