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Network Fundamentals: Top Picks

Network Fundamentals

Securing Your Home Network

In today's world, securing your home network is more important than ever. With the increasing number of cyberattacks, data breaches, and online fra...
Network Fundamentals

Firewall Topologies

In this section we are going to talk about the different ways a firewall can be set up. Depending on your needs, you can have a very simple firewal...
Network Fundamentals

LAN Network Topologies

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...
Network Fundamentals

Introduction to Content Switching - Application...

Content switches (also sometimes called application switches) is a class of network device that is becoming increasingly common in medium to large ...

Featured Subcategories:

Netflow Articles:

Netflow

Netflow: Monitor Bandwidth & Network Utilizatio...

Monitoring network traffic & bandwidth usage via Netflow is mandatory for any type and size network. Gaining visibility into user traffic, appl...
Netflow

Complete Guide to Netflow: How Netflow & its Co...

This article will cover the basics of Netflow, including its use cases, Netflow supported devices, Netflow history, and variants. We’ll also dive i...
Netflow

NetFlow Analyzer: Free Download, Step-by-Step I...

In our previous article we explained how a Netflow Analyzer can help you gain visibility into your user traffic, application traffic and data flows...
Netflow

Netflow vs SNMP. Two Different Approaches to Ne...

SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) and Netflow are both popular protocols with admins, prized for their ability to give visibility over the ...

Network Protocols:

Supernetting & CIDR

Supernetting In-Depth Analysis - Learn to Ident...

Our previous article served as an introduction to Supernetting, also known as Route Summarization. We covered the concept of Supernetting, how it w...
Subnetting

IP Subnetting - Part 1: The Basic Concepts

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 ...
Subnetting

IP Subnetting - Part 2: Subnet Masks & Their Ef...

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 o...
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis

TCP Header Anaylsis - Section 3: TCP Header Len...

The third field under close examination is the TCP Header length. There really isn't that much to say about the Header length other than to explain...
Domain Name System (DNS)

The DNS Protocol - Part 1: Introduction

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 DN...
Domain Name System (DNS)

The DNS Protocol - Part 2: DNS Queries & Resolu...

This section will help you understand how the DNS queries work on the Internet and your home network. There are two ways to use the domain name sys...
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis

TCP Header Anaylsis - Section 7: TCP Data Paylo...

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 ...
Supernetting & CIDR

The Supernetting / CIDR Chart

This articles build upon our previous pages covering  what is Supernetting (Route Summarization) & How Supernets Work and Supernetting In-...

STP/ICMP Protocols:

ICMP Protocol

ICMP Protocol - Part 6: Redirect Messages

The ICMP - Redirect Message is always sent from a gateway to the host and the example below will illustrate when this is used. Putting it simply (...
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

Spanning Tree Protocol – Part 3: Bridge ID, Pri...

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...
ICMP Protocol

ICMP Protocol - Part 2: Echo / Echo Reply (Ping...

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 ...
ICMP Protocol

ICMP Protocol - Part 1: Introduction

The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), is a very popular protocol and actually part of an Internet Protocol (IP) implementation. Because IP ...

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Network and Server Monitoring

Network and Server Monitoring

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SDWAN & SASE

Secure SD-WAN - SASE

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Bandwidth Monitor

Bandwidth Monitor

Free PatchManager

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EventLog Analyzer

ManageEngine Eventlog Analyzer


VLAN Networks

Dynamic VLANs

Dynamic VLANs were introduced to grant the flexibility and complexity(!) that Static VLANs did not provide. Dynamic VLANs are quite rare because of thei...
VLAN Networks

VTP Introduction & Modes

The invention of VLANs was very much welcomed by all engineers and administrators, allowing them to extend, redesign and segment their existing network ...
VLAN Networks

VLAN Security - Making the Most of VLANs

It's easy to see why virtual LANs have become extremely popular on networks of all sizes. In practical terms, multiple VLANs are pretty much the same as...
VLAN Networks

VLANs - IEEE 802.1q Trunk Link Protocol Analysis

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...

Routing

OSPF - Part 4: OSPF Neighbor States – OSPF Neighbor ...

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 ...
Routing

Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol - EIGRP

Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), similar to IGRP, is a Cisco proprietary routing protocol that is used to exchange routing informatio...
Routing

Distance Vector Routing Protocols

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 inte...
Routing

Routed Protocols

We all understand that TCP/IP, IPX-SPX are protocols which are used in a Local Area Network (LAN) so computers can communicate between with each other a...

Network Address Translation - NAT

Static NAT - Part 1

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. ...
Network Address Translation - NAT

Network Address Translation (NAT) Overload - Part 1

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 li...
Network Address Translation - NAT

Static NAT - Part 2

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 ...
Network Address Translation - NAT

Network Address Translation (NAT) Overload - Part 2

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 t...