Networks Articles

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Monday, 8th May 2006 @ 1:57 PM

When you\'re studying for the BSCI exam on the way to earning your CCNP certification, it\'s safe to say that BGP is like nothing you’ve studied to this point. BGP is an external routing protocol used primarily by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Unless you work for an ISP today or in the future, you may have little or no prior exposure to BGP. Understanding BGP is a great addition to your skill set – and you have to know the basics well to pass the BSCI exam. Note that I sa... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Thursday, 4th May 2006 @ 7:57 AM

To pass the BSCI exam and earn your CCNP, you\'ve got to keep a lot of details in mind. It\'s easy to overlook the \"simpler\" protocols and services such as static routing and distance vector protocols. With this in mind, here\'s a quick review of some details you should know for success in the exam room and real-world networks! When packets need to be routed, the routing table is parsed for the longest prefix match if multiple paths exist with the same prefix leng... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Thursday, 4th May 2006 @ 7:57 AM

Not only is your CCNA exam going to have questions on VLAN trunking protocol, almost any network that has more than one VLAN is going to have VTP running. Whether you\'re planning on passing the CCNA exam or just brushing up on your networking skills, this VTP tutorial will help you learn the basics of this important protocol. VTP allows switches to advertise VLAN information between other members of the same VTP domain. VTP allows a consistent view of the switched network across ... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Thursday, 4th May 2006 @ 7:56 AM

Not only is your CCNA exam going to have questions on VLAN trunking protocol, almost any network that has more than one VLAN is going to have VTP running. Whether you\'re planning on passing the CCNA exam or just brushing up on your networking skills, this VTP tutorial will help you learn the basics of this important protocol. VTP allows switches to advertise VLAN information between other members of the same VTP domain. VTP allows a consistent view of the switched network across ... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Monday, 1st May 2006 @ 9:57 AM

To pass the CCNA exam and earn this important certification, you’ve got to know switching inside and out. While you’re learning all the basic switching theory, make sure to spend some time with the one of three switching modes Cisco routers can use. Store-and-Forward is exactly what it sounds like. The entire frame will be stored before it is forwarded. This mode allows for the greatest amount of error checking, since a CRC (Cyclical Redundancy Check) is run against the frame before it... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Monday, 1st May 2006 @ 9:56 AM

To earn your CCNP certification and pass the BCMSN exam, you\'ve got to know what HSRP does and the many configurable options. While the operation of HSRP is quite simple (and covered in a previous tutorial), you also need to know how HSRP arrives at the MAC address for the virtual router - as well as how to configure a new MAC for this virtual router. This puts us in the unusual position of creating a physical address for a router that doesn\'t exist! The output of show stand... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Monday, 1st May 2006 @ 9:55 AM

CCNP exam success, particularly on the BSCI exam, demands you understand the details of route summarization. This skill not only requires that you have a comfort level with binary conversions, but you have to know how and where to apply route summarization with each individual protocol. You also have to know the \"side effects\" of route summarization. With OSPF, there will actually be an extra interface created at the point of summarization, and this catches a lot of CCNP candi... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Saturday, 29th April 2006 @ 9:56 AM

Defined in RFC 2281, HSRP is a Cisco-proprietary protocol in which routers are put into an HSRP router group. Along with dynamic routing protocols and STP, HSRP is considered a high-availability network service, since all three have an almost immediate cutover to a secondary path when the primary path is unavailable. One of the routers will be selected as the primary (\"Active\", in HSRP terminology), and that primary will handle the routing while the other routers are in standby,... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Saturday, 29th April 2006 @ 9:55 AM

Passing the BSCI exam and earning your CCNP is all about knowing the details, and when it comes to EIGRP SIA routes, there are plenty of details to know. A quick check in a search engine for \"troubleshoot SIA\" will bring up quite a few matches. Troubleshooting SIA routes is very challengin in that there\'s no one reason they occur. View the EIGRP topology table with the show ip eigrp topology command, and you\'ll see a code next to every successor and feasible successo... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Tuesday, 25th April 2006 @ 9:03 AM

The most common method of configuring ISDN is with dialer maps, but dial information can also be configured on a logical interface. To pass the CCNA exam, you must know how to configure and troubleshoot both dialer maps and dialer profiles. Dialer Profiles allow different dialing information to be configured onto logical interfaces. The logical interfaces may have different dialing destinations, different remote router names, etc., but they’ll be using the same physical interface.<... more...