Protocols

Understanding Spanning Tree Protocols – STP, RSTP, MSTP

Understanding Spanning Tree Protocols – STP, RSTP, MSTP

STP is the short form for Spanning Tree Protocol & RSTP (Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol), MSTP (Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol) are all advanced/ improved implementations of STP. In this article, we will try to understand the basic concepts of Spanning Tree Protocols and their implementation. »

What you ought to know before deploying an 802.11n Wireless Network

What you ought to know before deploying an 802.11n Wireless Network

We all know that the IEEE 802.11n standard for Wi-Fi supports up to 600 Mbps for creating a wireless network. But are all 802.11n compliant devices same? Is the 600 Mbps throughput feasible as of today? What other network/ device considerations do we need to account for, to achieve maximum 802.11n throughput levels? These... »

What you need to know about SIP – Session Initiation Protocol

What you need to know about SIP – Session Initiation Protocol

What is the right notation - IP Phones (or) SIP Phones? SIP, has become such a common protocol for voice communications over IP that we tend to think that SIP phones are IP Phones! What is so special about SIP that enabled it to beat the H.323 implementations of the biggest telecommunication companies? Let... »

How IEEE 802.1x secures the Network edge

How IEEE 802.1x secures the Network edge

The Network Access to the IT network of any organization needs to be controlled right at the network edge - where the devices connect to the IP Network. In this article, let us look at an introduction to IEEE 802.1x protocol, the elements of 802.1x, advantages of 802.1x, role of 802.1x in the authentication... »

Advantages and limitations of using sFlow for Network monitoring

Advantages and limitations of using sFlow for Network monitoring

This article is about the advantages and disadvantages of using sFlow technology for network monitoring and enabling basic level network security. We discuss about the multi-vendor support for sFlow, its hardware implementation, how it provides a 30,000 foot view of the whole network and many more advantages and limitations as well. »

sFlow and its Applications for Network Monitoring

sFlow and its Applications for Network Monitoring

In this article we look at what is sFlow, what are the components of sFlow, how sFlow helps big networks to monitor the network usage and security parameters through packet sampling and the various applications of sFlow technology in enterprise networks. »

An overview of SNMP – Simple Network Management Protocol

An overview of SNMP – Simple Network Management Protocol

If there is a huge network - it needs to be managed! That's where SNMP comes in. With a plethora of network devices now supporting this protocol, it has become quite indispensable. In this article, we will see what is SNMP protocol, why and where it is used, components of SNMP protocol, introduction... »

What is a RADIUS server?

What is a RADIUS server?

We all have heard a lot about the RADIUS server. We know it is sitting somewhere in the network, authenticating all the users. What exactly is this RADIUS server? How does it Authenticate, Authorize and Account for individual users and sessions? Let us find out in this article. »

An Overview of Syslog and Syslog Server

An Overview of Syslog and Syslog Server

This article gives a short introduction to Syslog and Syslog server, how they help in monitoring of the network devices by storing and retrieving the logs generated by the network devices in a data base format, how messages are logged in a Syslog server, filtering rules in a Syslog server, options for alarm generation... »

Quality of Service in Wireless Networks – WMM and WMM-SA

This article introduces the QoS mechanisms followed by a wireless network like WMM(Wireless Multi-Media) and WMM-SA(Wireless Multi-Media Scheduled Access) which are both standards based and help wireless networks to reliably enable real time and latency sensitive applications like voice and video by prioritizing them and transmitting them ahead of the normal data traffic like... »