Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab Setup Tutorial: How To Buy & Build A Frame Relay Switch by Chris Bryant
One of the major topics on your CCNA and CCNP exams is Frame Relay. Additionally, Frame Relay is one of the most popular WAN technolgies in today's networks. Getting hands-on experience with Frame Relay in Cisco networks isn't just a good idea, it's a necessity. ... (You'll want an access server as well, but that's another article.) What I use in my student and customer pods is a setup where R1 is connected to the frame switch's S1 port, R2 is connected to S2 on the frame switch, and R3 is connected to the frame switch's S3 port.

Network+ Certification Exam Tutorial: Collision Domains And Switches by Chris Bryant
In the previous Network+ exam tutorial, we talked about how collisions occur when data sent by two hosts on a shared Ethernet segment transmit data at the exact same time. Collisions result in the colliding data being unusable, which means the hosts must retransmit the data - and all this extra... Switches help to eliminate the chance of collisions because each port on the switch is actually its own little collision domain! ... If we take the three PCs mentioned before and connect them each to their own switch port, they literally cannot be involved in collision with each other - and in...

CompTIA Network+ Certification Exam Tutorial: Hubs, Repeaters, Bridges, and Switches by Chris Bryant
To pass your Network+ certification exam, you must know the differences between hubs, repeaters, bridges, and switches. The differences are straightforward for the most part, so let's examine the basic purpose of these devices. Hubs and repeaters both work at the Physical layer of the OSI model. ... Repeaters are just about extinct in today's networks, because they only have one input port and one output port. ... A switch is either going to forward, flood, or filter a frame, depending on whether it knows how to reach the destination MAC address of the frame.

Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial And Case Study: VLANs and IP Connectivity by Chris Bryant
In this CCNA case study, we'll take some basic switching and trunking theory and put it into action. We have two routers (R2 and R3) along with two switches (SW1 and SW2). R2 is connected to SW1 at fast 0/2, and R3 is connected to SW2 at fast 0/3. Both routers have IP addresses on the... SW2#show interface trunk Port Mode Encapsulation Status Native vlan Fa0/11 desirable 802.1q trunking 1 Fa0/12 desirable 802.1q trunking 1 The default mode of these switches is for the ports to run in dynamic desirable trunking mode, so we didn't even need to write a configuration to have the trunk form...

Cisco CCNA / CCNP Certification Exam: Cabling Your Home Lab by Chris Bryant
More CCNA and CCNP candidates than ever before are putting together their own home labs, and there's no better way to learn about Cisco technologies than working with the real thing. Getting the routers and switches is just part of putting together a great CCNA / CCNP home lab, though. ... The large connector should be attached to the async port on your AS, and the numbered RJ-45 connectors will be connected to the console ports on your other routers and switches. ... (Visit my website's Home Lab Help section for a sample Frame Relay switch configuration.) If you have multiple switches in...

CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP) by Chris Bryant
Passing the BCMSN exam and getting one step closer to the CCNP certification means learning and noticing details that you were not presented with in your CCNA studies. (Yes, I know – you had more than enough details then, right?) One protocol you’ve got to learn more details about is VTP, which... When a switch running in Transparent mode receives a VTP advertisement, that switch will forward that advertisement to other switches in that VTP domain. ... Therefore, any VLANs created on a Transparent VTP switch will not be advertised to other VTP speakers in the domain, making them locally...

Cisco CCNA Certification: How And Why Switches Trunk by Chris Bryant
Your CCNA studies are going to include quite a bit of information about switches, and for good reason. if you don't understand basic switching theory, you can't configure and troubleshoot Cisco switches, either on the CCNA exam or in the real world. That goes double for trunking! ... The native vlan is simply the default vlan that switch ports are placed into if they are not expressly placed into another vlan. ... (This can be changed.) If dot1q is running, frames that are going to be sent across the trunk line don't even have a header placed on them; the remote switch will assume that...

Cisco Certification: Building Your Own Home Lab, Part I by Chris Bryant
CCNAs and CCNA candidates hear it all the time: 'Get some hands-on experience'. From my personal experience climbing the Cisco certification ladder, I can tell you firsthand that there is no learning like hands-on learning. No simulator in the world is going to give you the experience you will... You will need to add a transceiver to convert the Ethernet AUI port to an RJ-45 style Ethernet port. ... However, with only about 2 questions on the test dedicated to 'hands on' switch knowledge, if you have to skimp on something, skimp on the switch.

Cisco CCNA Certification Training: Etherchannels And Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) by Chris Bryant
Cisco CCNA certification looks great on your resume, and it also teaches you vital real-world networking skills. One exam topic that you'll definitely see in today's networks is the configuration of an Etherchannel on a Cisco router. You need to know how to build and verify one - so let's build... SW1(config)#int fast 0/11 SW1(config-if)#channel-group 1 mode on Creating a port-channel interface Port-channel 1 The channel-group command must be configured on each physical interface that we want to place into the Etherchannel, so we'll have to configure it on ports 0/11 and 0/12 on both...

Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: The Four (Or Five) STP Port States by Chris Bryant
As a CCNP candidate and a CCNA, you may be tempted to skip or just browse the many details of Spanning Tree Protocol. After all, you learned all of that in your CCNA studies, right? That's right, but it never hurts to review STP for a switching exam! ... Once the port is opened, the port will go into blocking state. ... When the port goes from listening mode to learning mode, it's getting ready to send and receive frames. ... The port still can't forward or receive data frames. ... In learning mode, the port begins to learn MAC addresses in preparation for adding them to its MAC address...