Find a guide for the connection you need to build, the service you need to run, or the problem you need to investigate.
Browse by topic below. Practical guides sit alongside explanations of specialized equipment and older technologies that still inform network design and migration decisions.
Understand networking
Start with the concepts behind network layers, digital infrastructure, and packet-based services.
OSI Layers and Real Networks
Map protocols to the seven-layer model and use the distinctions to guide troubleshooting.
Information and Communication Technology
Connect networking with computing, digital services, skills, security, and organizational planning.
Packet Communications
Understand how voice, video, and data share IP networks, including signaling, quality of service, and legacy interfaces.
Connect homes and small offices
Compare existing wiring, wireless links, broadband access, and device connections.
MoCA Networking over Coax
Use existing coax for networking while accounting for splitters, frequency overlap, cable service, and installation details.
Networking over Electrical Wiring
Evaluate powerline networking against Ethernet, coax, and Wi-Fi, including interference and real-world installation limits.
Wireless Mesh and Automated Setup
Explore mesh backhaul, self-configuration, and automated onboarding—and the planning that remains necessary.
Google Fiber and High-Speed Broadband
Follow the broadband project from its original experiment to fiber services, availability, and practical access considerations.
Linksys WRT160NL Media Router
Understand this Linux-based router’s USB media features, historical role, and present-day support and security limitations.
USB 3 Speeds, Connectors, and Cables
Separate data-rate labels, connector shapes, cable capabilities, and power requirements.
Plan switches and wide-area links
Match link speeds, forwarding, and transport services to the work the network must carry.
Choosing a 10 Gigabit Switch
Consider ports, uplinks, switching capacity, resilience, and the role of 10GbE in an evolving network.
10 Gigabit Ethernet over Copper
Understand Cat 6A, channel length, crosstalk, multi-gigabit access, and where fiber or direct-attach cabling fits better.
Fast Ethernet in Mixed-Speed Networks
Distinguish routing from switching and identify where a 100 Mbps link remains useful or becomes a bottleneck.
MPLS Labels, VPNs, and Traffic Engineering
Follow label forwarding and explore service-provider uses, segment routing, operational checks, and security assumptions.
IP Routing, Policy, and Observability
Connect IPv4 and IPv6 forwarding with traffic engineering, quality of service, telemetry, and automation.
Converged Campus Networks
Plan shared infrastructure for voice, data, and wireless access, with attention to resilience and user experience.
MTNS and Private WAN Migration
Use the history of mixed-access MPLS services to understand migration from separate Frame Relay and Ethernet networks.
Build fiber and optical links
Understand connectors, wavelength sharing, and switching at the optical layer.
Fiber Optic Connectors
Compare connector types, polish, cleaning, termination methods, and loss-budget considerations.
CWDM: Sharing Fiber with Multiple Wavelengths
Assess passive wavelength multiplexing for metro and access links, including reach and optical compatibility.
DWDM and Coherent Optical Transport
Explore dense wavelength channels, coherent optics, ROADMs, and the questions that shape an optical link.
Intelligent Optical Switching
Distinguish routing light paths from Ethernet packet forwarding and compare optical-switch technologies and tradeoffs.
High-Speed Optical Switching Research
Understand NICT’s optical switching demonstration, spatial division multiplexing, and the challenges of data-center applications.
Optical Transport and Multiple Services
Connect OTN, DWDM, packet-optical systems, and service requirements when planning shared transport infrastructure.
Secure and operate the network
Manage access, updates, application delivery, wireless performance, and power continuity.
VPN Appliances and Remote Access
Compare tunneling approaches, authentication, split tunneling, endpoint trust, and gateway maintenance.
IP Network Borders and Trust Boundaries
Examine session border controllers, Internet routing edges, cloud connections, and the controls each boundary needs.
Patch Management and Verification
Build an inventory, prioritize updates, test deployment rings, plan recovery, and verify that fixes reached the intended systems.
Wireless Network Management
Assess client experience, radio conditions, identity, configuration, and troubleshooting across a managed WLAN.
Network Power and Battery Backup
Plan backup coverage, runtime, PoE budgets, monitoring, and maintenance for the equipment needed to keep service working.
Application Delivery and Network Visibility
Explore load balancing, application security, policy, and observability across data centers, cloud services, and remote access.
Measure performance and timing
Choose measurements and instruments that answer the actual link, service, or component question.
Ethernet Test Equipment and Service Validation
Compare field and lab testing, service activation methods, traffic measurements, and equipment-selection criteria.
Network Performance Testers
Understand throughput, loss, latency, jitter, error correction, and optical transport testing across different rates and interfaces.
Network Clocks: NTP, PTP, and SyncE
Separate time, phase, and frequency needs and consider reference sources, resilience, and timing security.
Optical Reflectometers: OBR and OTDR
Match high-resolution component inspection or installed-fiber testing to distance, resolution, loss, and reflection measurements.
Optical Vector Analyzers
Explore component measurements of loss, phase, polarization, dispersion, and group delay.
Connect storage and private infrastructure
Distinguish data-access models, storage fabrics, and the operating responsibilities of a private cloud.
Storage Networking: Block, File, and Object
Compare SAN, NAS, and object access alongside Ethernet, Fibre Channel, cloud storage, and data protection.
Storage Area Network Design and Operations
Examine Fibre Channel, iSCSI, and NVMe fabrics, including zoning, multipathing, security, and troubleshooting.
SAN Interfaces, Adapters, and Protocols
Connect storage-interface hardware with Fibre Channel, iSCSI, NVMe over Fabrics, and shared block-storage design.
Private Cloud Architecture and Responsibilities
Distinguish cloud automation from virtualization and compare dedicated infrastructure, hybrid designs, governance, and operations.
Support communications and legacy services
Understand service requirements and migration choices where voice, messaging, and older transport meet.
Contact Center Network Design
Consider voice quality, resilience, cloud connections, collaboration channels, security, and AI-assisted contact-center functions.
Messaging Federation and Connectivity
Explore cross-platform communication, identity, recordkeeping, encryption, and enterprise collaboration tradeoffs.
Wireless T1 and Fixed-Wireless Backhaul
Understand why wireless T1 links were used and how their design concerns carry into packet-based fixed wireless.
Promina, SCREAM, and SHOUTIP
Learn what these multiservice platforms carried and what their history reveals about migrating TDM, ATM, and IP services.
Design industrial networks and interfaces
Explore environmental constraints, embedded connectivity, and the components behind specialized systems.
Industrial and Harsh-Environment Networks
Account for environmental exposure, hazardous locations, wireless choices, equipment suitability, and operational security.
Embedded and Single-Chip Ethernet
Distinguish integrated MAC and PHY functions and explore industrial, automotive, and single-pair Ethernet applications.
Advanced Switching and System Interconnects
Understand the PCI Express-based fabric proposal, its intended uses, and lessons for modular-system interconnects.
SONET/SDH Framers and Time-Slot Switching
Explain synchronous framing, traffic grooming, chip interfaces, and the legacy systems where these functions remain relevant.
Zero-Delay Buffers and Clock Distribution
Understand feedback-based clock alignment and distinguish propagation delay, skew, and jitter in timing designs.