Network Fundamentals

The whole data communication industry is bullish about Software Defined Networking (SDN). What is SDN? Is it really a game changer? I think nobody knows that for sure because it is still evolving. While there have been some companies which have deployed SDN in their Data Centers, it is still not …

Have you heard someone using a phrase ‘Can you ping me at 8:00 PM’ or ‘Please ping me when you are free’? I am sure you must have heard people using such phrases in their daily talks. I think its fairly obvious that they want the other person to check …

As part of securing a network, access to your devices needs to be restricted and monitored. This includes direct access to routers, switches and servers but it can extend to allowing users to log on to particular services such as logging on to your ISP. It would be a tedious task if, for example, on …

There seems to be a growing argument lately over network optimization and the use of Jumbo Frames.  With the cost of Gigabit networking continuing to go down, and 10 Gigabit (and greater) networks becoming more affordable, the impact of this decision is becoming more and more important. Knowing how and …

An Introduction to Wireless Networking Standards Way back in the early days of Wireless LAN (WLAN) development, there were a whole lot of folks trying different types of technologies to get wireless LAN communications to work.  Eventually some clear winners started to rise to the top and it was seen …

If any technology in networking  had identity issues, it would have to be Link Aggregation.   This simple process can never seem to make up its mind what it wants to be called. Link aggregation is the process of combining two or more connections into a larger pipe to allow …

What is ARP? ARP or Address Resolution Protocol is a simple communications protocol used primarily today in IP and Ethernet networks.  It’s main purpose is to discover and associate IP addresses to physical MAC hardware addresses. How does ARP work? When a computer needs to send data across a network …

Problem Diagnosis With Ping By Steve Waddington The two most used tools, and almost always the first used to diagnose a network problem are traceroute and ping. The results they return are however most often misunderstood or interpreted in a way that leads to an incorrect conclusion. Let’s take the …

Network Routing Protocols – IGRP, EIGRP, OSPF, ISIS, BGP The purpose of routing protocols is to learn of available routes that exist on the enterprise network, build routing tables and make routing decisions. Some of the most common routing protocols include RIP, IGRP, EIGRP, OSPF, IS-IS and BGP. There are …

Most businesses and networks today use IPv4 as their network addressing standard. With the exception of some DoD and government agencies few people have adopted IPv6. But what is so different about IPv6 versus IPv4? In this post we compare the differences between IPv6 and IPv4 and review some of …