Before I go into the well-worn reasons why nobody cares about IPv6, I’ll tell you the one absolutely compelling reason why you should care: IPv6 comes pre-enabled on a lot of devices you have on your network right now. When services are enabled without your knowledge, that’s just dangerous.

Troubleshooting is more art than science. When diagnosing a problem, the most important tool is an intimate understanding of your network: what connects to what, and where everything is both logically and physically. You almost need to visualize the packets going from one device to the next. That includes verifying physical connectivity. That’s where network diagrams, topology mapping, and cabling spreadsheets become extremely important.

Advanced technologies are reshaping how businesses operate, from facilitating remote work to enhancing employee productivity. By understanding today’s trends, businesses can better prepare for the future of work, optimize their operations, and stay competitive in an increasingly digital world.

Computer networks have become integral to our modern digital world. From browsing the web to sending emails and transferring files, network connectivity enables countless applications and services. However, this would not be possible without network protocols, which provide a common language for devices to exchange information reliably. This article will explore some of the most common network protocols that drive communication and connectivity in networks and the Internet.

Link aggregation is a way of bundling a bunch of individual (Ethernet) links together so they act as a single logical link. A fundamental for effective switch management, if you have a switch with a whole lot of Gigabit Ethernet ports, you can connect all of them to another device that also has a bunch of ports and balance the traffic among these links to improve performance.

If you’ve ever been in charge of IP address assignment, you’ve come across the terms classful and classless addressing. If you haven’t, the main difference between classful and classless addressing is in the subnet length: classful addressing uses fixed-length subnet masks, but classless uses variable length subnet masks (VLSM).

The TCP/IP protocol sometimes shows its age. It was invented in an era when networks were very slow and packet loss was high. So one of the main considerations in early protocol design was reliability. The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) has built-in mechanisms for reliability that include validating a checksum on every packet, as well as detection and retransmission of dropped or out-of-order packets.

Is that a bird’s nest or is it spaghetti? Have you ever asked that question when looking into a IT wiring closet? At some point in your tenure as a network manager, you’ve likely been asked to inventory a network and create a network topology diagram.

For new networkers, Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) can be an intimidating topic. Many old-timers speak of spanning-tree in ominous tones, recounting the time when a “spanning-tree loop” brought down the network. Some managers strictly forbid anyone from changing anything related to the spanning tree, fearing a resulting service interruption. Some of the fear surrounding spanning trees is likely based on bad experiences, but some are based on ignorance—at least partly.

Let me start by saying that spanning tree is a Good Thing. It saves you from loops, which will completely shut down a network. But it has to be configured properly to work properly. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had a client call me, desperate with a terribly broken network, and I’ve responded, “Sounds like a spanning tree problem.” There are many ways things can go wrong with spanning tree. In this article, I’ve collected six of the recurring themes.