Network+ exam prep: network operations
You learn the daily work of keeping a network up: documentation, configuration backups, SNMP and log collection, flow analysis, quality of service and high availability.
Level 201 · 14 lessons · 12 practice labs
Lessons
Documentation and life cycle
- Network diagrams: physical and logical views
- Configuration backups and comparing against a baseline
- Change management and device life cycle
- Preparing an IP address plan table
- Short task: complete the missing documentation of a network you inherited
Monitoring
- SNMP queries and traps
- Collecting network device logs centrally
- Finding the top talkers with flow data
- Measuring latency, jitter, packet loss and bandwidth
- Short task: set up monitoring and a threshold alarm for a link
Continuity and management
- High availability and disaster recovery: RTO, RPO, backup sites
- Quality of service: prioritising voice and video
- Out-of-band and secure remote management
- Capstone: write and test a network’s operations runbook
Practice labs
- Back up a router's configuration: You save the lab router's running configuration to a dated file and verify the backup is readable.
- Find drift from the baseline configuration: You compare the approved baseline with today's configuration and list three changes that have no record.
- Set up a nightly config backup and diff report: You schedule a job that pulls every router's configuration nightly, diffs it against the day before and logs a warning on change.
- Complete a missing IP address table: You enter the devices you discovered by scanning into Karabatak Denizcilik's IP plan table with address, MAC, name and location.
- Draw the logical diagram from command output: You produce a logical diagram file showing subnets and routers from routing tables and interface lists.
- Run maintenance under an approved change record: You make an ACL change in a maintenance window with record, apply, verify and rollback steps and close the record.
- Collect router logs centrally: You send two routers' syslog messages to the lab collector and verify an interface-down message arrives.
- Find the host saturating a link with flow data: From the flow collector's records you list the three hosts that sent the most data in the last hour and their destinations.
- Measure latency and jitter for a voice link: You run a test of latency, jitter and packet loss between two branches and report whether it is good enough for voice calls.
- Mark voice traffic: You mark traffic from voice ports with a priority value on the gateway and confirm the mark in a capture.
- Move management access to a separate network: You limit the router's SSH management to the management network and test that the user network is refused.
- Write and rehearse a link-outage runbook: You write a step-by-step runbook for a main-link outage, follow it in the lab by cutting the link and record the recovery time.
About this course
You learn the daily work of keeping a network up: documentation, configuration backups, SNMP and log collection, flow analysis, quality of service and high availability.
What you will learn
- Documentation and life cycle
- Monitoring
- Continuity and management
Prerequisites
Finishing the level 101 courses of the same path, or knowing those topics, is enough.
Lab environment
Lessons run in your own Kali Linux terminal in the browser, connected to a private lab network. Nothing to install.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this course right for my level?
- The course is at level 201; it assumes you know the topics of the lower-level courses.
- Is there anything to install?
- No. Every lesson runs in your own lab environment that opens in the browser.
- How do lessons work?
- Each lesson has 8 to 10 steps and a short quiz. Early steps show the command to type, later steps give less help; if two attempts fail, the solution opens.
- Can I try it for free?
- Yes. The first three lessons of every course are free.