Introduction to Local and Wide Area Networking

Overview
Affectionately known as "John and Jane go Networking", this seminar is a fast paced introduction to Local and Wide Area Networking concepts and terminology.
It is aimed at novices to the field of networking and data communications who require a rapid and intensive introduction to the subject.

Course Contents
The reasons networks were developed

• sharing resources (e.g. access to file servers, print servers)
• collaborative work (group working)
• transfer of documents and files
• access to intranets and internets

Networking and Data Communications Protocols

• What are protocols
• Standards and standards making organisations (ITU-T, ANSI, ISO, IETF)
• Computer communication strategies
  • packet switching
  • message switching
  • circuit switching
• Understanding the ISO-OSI seven layer model
• Advantages of layered protocols
• TCP/IP in reference to the seven layer model

Physical links and their interfaces

• analogue vs. digital circuits
• baseband vs. broadband
• cable types - coax (shielded and unshielded) , twisted pair, optical fibre
• radio links ( microwave, Bluetooth, 802.11x , cellular, satellite)

Telephony

• dial-up modem standards V.9x, V.42, V.2x ...
• dial up ISDN- BRI, PRI
• DSL and Cable Modem

WAN technology

• X.25
• ATM
• Frame Relay
• SONET/SDH

Local Area Networks

• Ethernet (10/100 BASE T, 1 and 10 Gigabit)
• Token Ring
• FDDI

LAN interconnection

• Repeaters and hubs
• Bridges and Switches
• Routers

Advanced LAN topics

• VLANs
• IP switching
• QoS and IP
• MPLS

TCP/IP networking

• IPv4
• introduction to IPv6
• Application services
  • E-mail, FTP, Telnet, VoIP
  • DNS, DHCP, LDAP
  • HTTP. Web Services

Network Management and Security

• SNMP, RMON, MIBs
• Protocol analysers
• Public key
• PKI and Certificates
• IPsec
• VPNs
• Firewalls and Proxy servers