What Is Fabric Networking?
The networking industry came up with the term 'Fabric' to describe networking technologies that allow switches to connect in a way to achieve a mesh topology. More ...
IPv4 Address Classes
Originally, IP network numbers were defined with rigid boundaries and grouped into address classes. Even though address classes was created to facilitate efficient use of the IPv4 address space, because of its rigidity it has been abandoned for more flexible classless addressing. More ...
IP version 6 (IPv6) Advantages and Implementation
The Internet has, to all intents and purposes, run out of public IP version 4 addresses. The solution to this issue is new IP version 6. This would require a parallel IPv6 based Internet to be running until all IPv4 connections have been converted. More ...
Comparing IPv4 and IPv6 at a Glance
When examining the details of the IPv4 and IPv6 headers, there are some important differences between the two protocols. This article summarizes some of the differences. More ...
What's the Difference Between a Packet and a Frame?
When speaking of the data in a network, people often call everything a packet. A more proper generic term would be protocol data unit or PDU. The specific name for a PDU depends on at what layer the data unit is in the OSI model. More ...
What Are Private IP Addresses?
Normally you have to be assigned an IP address, or a group of IP addresses by a Regional Internet Registry. However, if you just need IP addresses for an internal network that will not be routed to the Internet, you can select from blocks of IP addresses reserved as Private IP addresses. More ...
Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) Protocol
Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) protocol is a computer networking technology intended to simplify the creation and configuration of networks, while enabling multipath routing. It is the replacement for the older spanning tree protocols. More ...
The OSI Session Layer
The Session layer, layer seven of the OSI model, establishes, synchronizes, maintains and terminates sessions between computers on a network. It establishes a connection ID and authenticates security. More ...
A Simple Description of the IPv6 Header and Datagram
This article provides a simple description of the IPv6 header and datagram without a lot referring back to IPv4. More ...
PoE (Power Over Ethernet)
Say you want to mount a wireless access point (AP) on the ceiling. Although no electrical outlet is available, a switch feature called Power over Ethernet (PoE) IEEE 802.3at standard offers as much as 32.4W of power over a UTP cable. More ...
Network Routing Protocols - IGRP, EIGRP, OSPF, ISIS, BGP
The purpose of routing protocols is to learn of available routes on the network and make routing decisions. There are two primary routing protocol types; link state and distance vector. Some of the most common routing protocols include RIP, IGRP, EIGRP, OSPF, IS-IS and BGP. More ...
T-Carrier
T-carrier is a time-division multiplexed (TDM) digital signal that has been used by the telephone companies for many decades. 24 8-bit signals are time-division multiplexed into a 1.544 Mbps t-carrier signal. More ...
IPv6 Address Types and Scopes
An IPv6 addresses have a size of 128 bits have three types, unicast, multicast, and anycast. Unicast addresses are for a one-to-one communication. Multicast addresses are for a one-to-many communication. Anycast addresses are for one node to nearest node of multiple nodes communication. More ...
Link Aggregation
If all ports on a switch are operating at the same speed, the ports most likely to experience congestion are ports connecting to another switch or router. To help alleviate congested links between switches, you can logically combine multiple physical connections into a single logical connection. More ...
Networking Routing Believability and Administrative Distance
If a network is running more than one routing protocol and a router receives two route advertisements from different routing protocols, which route advertisement does the router believe?. More ...
