Intro to Networking

You're in the middle of a video game or movie, and then suddenly, without warning, the internet goes down. What do you do?

That's easy. You start turning off and on devices, right? You may not think of it as a network, but that's exactly what your computer, console, or phone is connected to. You check the connection on your device. Turn it off, and then back on again. Still nothing.

Next, you connect to your wifi from another device, probably your phone. You go to a reliable webpage, probably Google. But it spins long enough that you know what Kill message you're about to see — no internet connection. So, it must be the router.

You go to your router and power cycle it. (Power cycle is just a fancy way of saying turn it off and back on again). That didn't work. You check your modem. The lights are flashing, but you can't remember what each one indicates, so you power cycle that, too. You go back to your TV, console, or computer — and you've fixed it! The power of the power cycle.

At home, network issues are fairly easy to fix without diagnoses. What happened in the depths of your small network that shut it all down? Who knows. It fixed itself. In a business network, however, it's not always quite as simple — and the "why" is important.

As a networking professional, you may be managing hundreds of routers and switches that are handling the traffic from thousands of phones, computers, and servers. Each device is sending packets and competing for bandwidth. The routers are communicating across the internet to services, DNS servers, and web servers. It's a complex system, and when something breaks, you'll need to know exactly what happened, how to fix it, and how to keep it from happening again.

This Intro to Networking training doesn't go that deep into the "why" of the matter. Instead, CBT Nuggets Keith Barker will teach you the fundamental parts of a network, how they interact with each other, and unlock the secrets of the backbone of the internet — TCP/IP.

After you watch these videos and take the quiz to prove you know how networks work. Then next time your home network goes down, you don't even need to open a browser to check your connection. Just ping 8.8.8.8, and wait for a response.

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Video 1: Intro to Networking

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Video 2: Terms You Need to Know in Networking

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Video 3: How to Read a Topology Diagram with Physical Devices

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Video 4: How Networks Works

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Video 5: How Application Layer Services Work

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Video 6: How to Verify DNS and HTTP

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Video 7: A Story about the TCP/IP Protocol Stack

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Video 8: How Ethernet Addresses Work

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Video 9: How Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Works

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Video 10: How L2 Switches Use MAC Addresses

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Video 11: What You Need to Know about IPv4

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Video 12: How Devices Talk Other Devices over the Internet

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Video 13: How Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DCHP) Works

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Video 14: How to Get Into Networking

Here's what you should do next:

• Validate what you learned today by taking the 14-question Intro to Networking quiz. There's one question from each video. Pay close attention. Pass the quiz to earn your certificate of completion. The quiz isn't timed, so you can even go back to the videos and review.

• Sign up at CBT Nuggets for a monthly subscription. The first week is free.

• Commit to training for 30 minutes a day, five days a week. You'll be surprised what you can learn in 10 hours per month.