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Network Fundamentals: Top Picks

Network Fundamentals
Network data transmission refers to the process of sending and receiving information between two or more devices connected to a network. It is a crit…
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
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…
Network Fundamentals
Network Switches are the evolution of Hubs and Repeaters, and enable the creation of networks by connecting multiple devices together. They are criti…

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
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) and Netflow are both popular protocols with admins, prized for their ability to give visibility over the ne…
Netflow
Monitoring network traffic & bandwidth usage via Netflow is mandatory for any type and size network. Gaining visibility into user traffic, applic…
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…

Network Protocols:

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…
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 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…
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
This page will closely examine the Sequence and Acknowledgement numbers. The very purpose of their existence is related directly to the fact that the…
Domain Name System (DNS)
This section will deal with the analysis of the DNS packets by examining how DNS messages are formatted and the options and variables they contain. T…
Subnetting
There are a few different ways to approach subnetting and it can get confusing because of the complexity of some subnets and the flexibility they off…
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…

STP/ICMP Protocols:

Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)
In this article we will examine the Spanning Tree Bridge ID structure, explain why it has increments of 4096, how VLAN information is embedded (for P…
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…
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 Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), is a very popular protocol and actually part of an Internet Protocol (IP) implementation. Because IP wa…

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VLAN Networks
The previous article introduced the VTP protocol, we examined how it can be used within a network, to help manage VLANs and ease the administrative overhe…
VLAN Networks
While the VLAN Tagging article briefly covered the IEEE 802.1q protocol this article will continue building upon it by further analyzing the IEEE 802.1q T…
VLAN Networks
The invention of VLANs was very much welcomed by all engineers and administrators, allowing them to extend, redesign and segment their existing network wi…
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…

Routing
Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is a distance-vector routing protocol that is commonly used in small to medium-sized networks. It is one of the o…
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
We are going to analyse what happens when routing occurs on a network (IP routing process). When I was new to the networking area, I thought that all you…
Routing
Distance Vector routing protocols use frequent broadcasts (255.255.255.255 or FF:FF:FF:FF) of their entire routing table every 30 sec. on all their interf…

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
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…
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
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…