Networking Fundamentals
A decent networking practitioner knows the configuration syntax details and all the nerd knobs available in devices he's working with. An internetworking expert is supposed to know (at least according to a leading networking vendor) an enormous amount of useless trivia like the inner structure of routing protocol packets.
In reality, a good networking engineer should know way more. He should understand how networking technologies work, why they were implemented that way, how they interact with adjacent technologies ranging from application stacks to virtualization and storage, and how they should be used to build stable and reliable networks.
A great networking engineer should go one step further, discover the actual business needs the network should support, minimize the complexity, make the network easy to deploy and operate, and effectively pass that knowledge to less-experienced team members.
ipSpace.net content was always focused on making you good networking engineers and make the best use of emerging networking technologies and concepts; the Networking Fundamentals series will help you make that extra step.
Webinar Roadmap
We would suggest you take this path through the networking fundamentals webinars:
Availability
Most of the networking fundamentals content as well as other networking technologies content is accessible with standard ipSpace.net subscription
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Subscription content
These networking fundamentals webinars are available to all paying ipSpace.net subscribers for the duration of their subscription:
Networking Technologies Fundamentals
This webinar will help you understand how networking technologies really work and why they were designed that way.
ipSpace.net Design Clinic is a monthly Zoom call open to ipSpace.net users with active paid subscription. The discussions are recorded, and the best bits are published as parts of relevant webinars or as a stand-alone collection.
This webinar explores tangible use cases for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in networking, and evaluates the good parts of AI/ML and the opportunities it brings. It also points out the (sometimes not so nice) reality, the bad aspects and the most ugly ones, giving you tools and decision points to help you explore the applicability of AI/ML in your context.
Mathematical Foundations of Networking
We usually design networks based on our intuition, past experience, or vendor-provided best practices. Other disciplines like Electrical Engineering are more rigorous and apply math tools to their problems. These webinars will help you understand the math basics of network topologies, reliable designs, and queuing.
This webinar will give you basic familiarity with graph theory, an understanding of what connectivity in networks means mathematically, and a new perspective on network design.
This webinar will give you basic familiarity with reliability theory, an understanding of what reliability of a network means mathematically, and a new perspective of systems reliability.
This webinar will give you basic familiarity with the queuing terminology and mathematical principles underlying the various queuing models.
In this webinar we'll examine how to understand different networking problems and concepts from mathematical perspective through the lens of graph algorithms or computational graph theory.
Soft Skills
Being a good networking engineer is more than just having the prerequisite knowledge and understanding the networking technologies. You should also be able to figure out the best way to solve actual business needs (as opposed to implementing requirements that come down the stack) and pass your knowledge to less experienced colleagues.
This webinar will put you in the right mindset when evaluating new technologies or designing new networks or services, and help you refocus on what really matters: the business needs of your organization.
This webinar approaches mentoring through the perspective of a typical engineer looking for understanding, tools and processes one can use to get good results instead of typical disappointments resulting from reading too many motivational blog posts.
Free content
These Networking Fundamentals webinars include free content: