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Network Fundamentals: Top Picks

Network Fundamentals
In today's world, securing your home network is more important than ever. With the increasing number of cyberattacks, data breaches, and online fraud…
Network Fundamentals
Network hubs were once the primary method of interconnecting network devices to create a local area network (LAN). Hubs were inexpensive, easy to ins…
Network Fundamentals
Next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) and DMZ zones are two critical components of network security that work hand in hand to protect an organization's n…
Network Fundamentals
Content switches (also sometimes called application switches) is a class of network device that is becoming increasingly common in medium to large si…

Featured Subcategories:

Netflow Articles:

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 will cover the basics of Netflow, including its use cases, Netflow supported devices, Netflow history, and variants. We’ll also dive int…
Netflow
Monitoring network traffic & bandwidth usage via Netflow is mandatory for any type and size network. Gaining visibility into user traffic, applic…
Netflow
In this article, we explore the core principles of bandwidth management and examine how modern network monitoring technologies can assist in maintain…

Network Protocols:

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
As we have seen in the previous pages, some TCP segments carry data while others are simple acknowledgements for previously received data. The popula…
Supernetting & CIDR
This articles build upon our previous pages covering  what is Supernetting (Route Summarization) & How Supernets Work and Supernetting In-De…
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…
IP Protocol
This article explains the 'Network-ID' and 'Host-ID' concept found in IP addressing and subnetting. We analyse the structure of IP addresses and netw…
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…
IP Protocol
This article examines the Internet Protocol (IP) and its position within the OSI Model. We take a look at the IP Header and all fields contained with…
IP Protocol
To understand the Internet Protocol, we need to learn and understand Binary. It is very important to know and understand Binary because part of the I…

STP/ICMP Protocols:

ICMP Protocol
As mentioned in the previous page, an Echo is simply what we networking engineers call a 'ping'. The Echo Reply is, as most would guess,  the 'p…
ICMP Protocol
The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), is a very popular protocol and actually part of an Internet Protocol (IP) implementation. Because IP wa…
ICMP Protocol
The ICMP - Time Exceeded message is one which is usually created by gateways or routers. In order to fully understand this ICMP message, you must be…
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
If you've read our previous article The VLAN Concept - Introduction to VLANs  then you should feel comfortable with terms such as 'VLAN', 'Stati…
VLAN Networks
This article deals with the popular topic of InterVLAN routing, which is used to allow routing & communication between VLAN networks. Our article anal…
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
Dynamic VLANs were introduced to grant the flexibility and complexity(!) that Static VLANs did not provide. Dynamic VLANs are quite rare because of their…

Routing
IGRP (Interior Gateway Routing Protocol) is a Cisco proprietary distance-vector routing protocol used in enterprise networks to exchange routing informati…
Routing
This article covers basic OSPF concepts and operation. We explain how OSPF works, how OSPF tables are built on an OSPF-enabled router and their purpose (N…
Routing
Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is a popular routing protocol developed for Internet Protocol (IP) networks by the Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) working…
Routing
Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), similar to IGRP, is a Cisco proprietary routing protocol that is used to exchange routing information…

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
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…
Network Address Translation - NAT
NAT Overload is the most common NAT method used throughout all networks that connect to the Internet. This is because of the way it functions and the limi…