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Network Fundamentals: Top Picks

Network Fundamentals
A network is simply a group of two or more Personal Computers linked together. Many types of networks exist, but the most common types of networks ar…
Network Fundamentals
A Denial of Service (DoS) attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal functioning of a website, server or network by flooding it with traffic…
Network Fundamentals
Network topologies can take a bit of time to understand when you're all new to this kind of cool stuff, but it's very important to fully understand t…
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…

Featured Subcategories:

Netflow Articles:

Netflow
Monitoring network traffic & bandwidth usage via Netflow is mandatory for any type and size network. Gaining visibility into user traffic, applic…
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
In this article, we explore the core principles of bandwidth management and examine how modern network monitoring technologies can assist in maintain…
Netflow
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) and Netflow are both popular protocols with admins, prized for their ability to give visibility over the ne…

Network Protocols:

TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
This article covers the UDP protocol. We examine the structure of the UDP header, the protocols that use UDP as a transport plus a lot more. Some co…
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
The TCP Options (MSS, Window Scaling, Selective Acknowledgements, Timestamps, Nop) are located at the end of the TCP Header which is also why they ar…
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…
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…
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
As previously mentioned on a number of occasions, TCP is one of the two protocols that lives at the Transport layer and is used to carry data from on…
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
This article is an introduction to the 7-page TCP Header analysis section that follows. We briefly view each section of the TCP Header and then move…
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…
Subnetting
When we subnet a network, we basically split it into smaller networks. For example, when a set of IP Addresses is given to a company, e.g 254 they mi…

STP/ICMP Protocols:

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 - 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…
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…
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…

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VLAN Networks
VLANs are usually created by the network administrator, assigning each port of every switch to a VLAN. Depending on the network infrastructure and securit…
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…
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…
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…

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
Link State routing protocols do not view networks in terms of adjacent routers and hop counts, but they build a comprehensive view of the overall network…
Routing
Distance Vector, Link State RIP, IGRP, EIGRP, OSPF Routing protocols were created for routers. These protocols have been designed to allow the exchange…
Routing
Hybrid routing protocols are a combination of distance-vector and link-state routing protocols, and are used to provide a more efficient and scalabl…

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…
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
Our previous article, Dynamic NAT - Part 1, covered the basic idea of Dynamic Network Address Translation. We are now going to take a closer look at the p…
Network Address Translation - NAT
Dynamic NAT is the second NAT mode we're going to talk about. Dynamic NAT, like Static NAT, is not that common in smaller networks but you'll find it used…