Educators providing Dsc courses in Coventry

MEF Carrier Ethernet training course description The course progresses from a overview of the Carrier Ethernet service and how it works onto looking at the concepts in depth. Service attributes and management follow with the course finishing with studies of practical Carrier Ethernet. What will you learn Discuss and understand key Carrier Ethernet Concepts. Understand tasks related to designing, deploying and maintaining a Carrier Ethernet network. Offer effective solutions to implementing a Carrier Ethernet enterprise network given available customer resources and requirements. Carry out informed discussions using industry Carrier Ethernet 'vocabulary. Pass the MEF CECP 2.0 professional accreditation exam. MEF Carrier Ethernet training course details Who will benefit: Anyone working with Carrier Ethernet Prerequisites: The course attendees need to be conversant with data networks, as well as Ethernet and IP technologies. Duration 5 days MEF Carrier Ethernet training course contents Section One: Introduction to Carrier Ethernet Introduction to Carrier Ethernet: What is Carrier Ethernet? Evolution, advantages, The MEF, MEF specifications; UNI, EVC, OVC, EPL/EVPL, EP-LAN/ EVP-LAN, EP-Tree/EVP-Tree, etc, overview. How Carrier Ethernet Works: Service Frame Handling. Carrier Ethernet at Customer Premises, metro and core. Carrier Ethernet Workings, UNI attributes, Service Attributes (EVC and EVC per UNI attributes), Bandwidth Profiles, service multiplexing, L2 protocol processing; Carrier Ethernet equipment, CPE, aggregation and homing nodes, core equipment; management systems. The Setting Up of a Carrier Ethernet Service: Step 1: Choose service type, EPL/EVPL, EP-LAN/EVP-LAN, EPTree/EVP-Tree, EVLine...; Step 2: CPE tasks, UNI-C tasks (UNI attributes, service attributes (EVC and EVC per UNI) and bandwidth profiles), UNI-N tasks (L2 protocol handling). Step 3: Non-CPE tasks, Access, metro and core connections set up. Section Two: Carrier Ethernet Concepts in depth Carrier Ethernet Definitions in Depth: UNI, UNI I & II, UNI-N and UNI-C, etc.; NNI/ENNI; EVC; OVC, OVC type (P2P, M2M, Rooted MP), OVC end point (root, leaf, trunk), OVC end point map, OVC end point bundling; Service types in detail, EPL/EVPL, EP-LAN/EVP-LAN, EP-Tree/EVP-Tree, EVLine, Access EPL, Access EVPL . Carrier Ethernet Service Frame Handling: Unicast, multicast and broadcast frame delivery, Tagged, untagged and priority; Tagging, C and S-Tags, 802.3, 802.1d, 802.1q, 802.1ad, 802.1ah evolution, VLAN ID translation/preservation. CoS preservation. Other Key Carrier Ethernet Concepts: MTU, MTU at UNI, MTU at ENNI; Physical Layer Attributes, FE, GbE and 10GbE, Service Multiplexing and Bundling Concept and detail, rules and implications; Hairpin Switching Managing Bandwidth in a Carrier Ethernet Network: Token Bucket Algorithm, EIR, CIR, CBS, EBS, Coupling Flag; Frame Colors, recoloring, Color Awareness attribute, Color Forwarding; Bandwidth Profiles, rules and concepts. MEF CoS identifiers, DEI bit (in S-Tag), PCP bit (in C-Tag or S-Tag), or DSCP (in IP header), Multiflow bandwidth concepts; CoS Label/Color Identification. Section Three: Carrier Ethernet Service Attributes Overview: Carrier Ethernet 2.0; Blueprint C Service Attributes: Per UNI, Physical interfaces, Frame format, Ingress/egress Bandwidth Profiles, CEVLAN ID/EVC Map, UNI protection. EVC per UNI, Ingress/egress Bandwidth Profiles, etc.; Per EVC, CEVLAN ID Preservation, CoS ID Preservation, Relationship between SLA and SLP, Class of Service, etc. OVC, ENNI, OVC End Point per UNI and OVC End Point per ENNI, Ingress/egress bandwidth profiles, etc. Section Four: Managing Carrier Ethernet Networks Overview: MEF Service Lifecycle.Carrier Ethernet maintenance: Port, Link & NE failure, Service Protection Technologies, Fault Identification and Recovery, LAG, Active/Standby EVC, Single EVC with transport protection, G.8031, G.8032, MPLS FRR. SOAMs: Connectivity fault management, connectivity Monitoring, Loopback, Linktrace; Performance Management, Frame Delay, Inter Frame Delay Variation, Availability, Frame Loss Ratio, Resiliency, HLI, DMM, DMR, SLM, SLR; Key Concepts, Single vs dual ended, ordered UNI pair calculations. LOAMs: Link discovery, link monitoring, etc. Terminology and Concepts: MEG levels, MIPs. Section Five: Practical Carrier Ethernet Carrier Ethernet Transport Technologies:Layer 1: SDH. Layer 2: Bridging, provider bridging, PBB, PBBTE. Layer 2.5: MPLS VPWS, MPLS VPLS, MPLS-TP. Carrier Ethernet Access Technologies: fiber, SDH, active fiber, PON, GPON, 10G PON, OTN, WDM; copper, PDH, G-SDSL, 10Pass-TS, HFC; packet radio. Optimising mobile backhaul with Carrier Ethernet Key challenges solutions: Market pressure, LTE evolution, elements and architecture (RAN BS, NC, GWIF.), synchronization, bandwidth management. Circuit Emulation over Ethernet: Purpose, needs and applications. Synchronization: Phased, ToD, External Reference source, SynchE ,NTP, IEEE-1588 v2/ PTP, ACR; MEF Service Definitions for emulated circuits. Applying what you know: Practical examples and scenarios, Carrier Ethernet solutions; Practice Scenarios, Given a scenario, determine appropriate Ethernet services

Advanced TCP/IP training course description An intensive advanced TCP/IP course focusing on the details of the protocols according to the RFCs. This course is designed to go into the technical details of the protocols and is not for those that are new to TCP/IP. A particular focus is on TCP and performance. Those more interested in routing protocols should see our Definitive IP routing for engineers course. It is expected that delegates are totally familiar with configuration addressing. Hands on sessions consist of protocol analysis using Wireshark. What will you learn Analyse packets and protocols in detail. Troubleshoot networks using Wireshark. Find performance problems using Wireshark. Perform network forensics. Advanced TCP/IP training course details Who will benefit: Advanced technical staff. Prerequisites: TCP/IP Foundation for engineers Duration 5 days Advanced TCP/IP training course contents IP Fragmentation and MTU issues, Path MTU discovery, Geolocation, unusual IP addresses, forwarding broadcasts, DiffServ, DSCP, ECN, assured and expedited forwarding. TTL usage in traceroute, Protocol field. Sanitising IP addresses in trace files. Wireshark and checksum errors. IPv6 The header. Extension headers. Traffic class and flow labels. Tunnelling. IPv6 and fragmentation. ARP Requests, responses, gratuitous ARP, Proxy ARP, ARP poisoning. ICMP ping, Round Trip Times, ICMP redirect, ICMP router advertisement and solicitation, Time Exceeded, Destination unreachable. ICMPv6: Similarity to ICMPv4, Neighbor discovery and the replacement of ARP. MLD. First hop redundancy ICMP discovery, HSRP, VRRP, GLBP. IGMP Multicast overview, multicast architecture, multicast addresses, IGMP v1, IGMPv2, IGMPv3. UDP Use in broadcasts and multicasts. Port numbers. TCP Connections, RST, FIN, sequence numbering, packet loss recovery, Fast recovery, RTO timeout, SACK, TCP flow control, receive window, congestion window, van Jacobsen, nagle, delayed ACKs, PSH, URG, TCP options, MSS, Window scaling, TCP timestamps. Congestion notification. Hands on Troubleshooting with sequence numbers, Wireshark IO and TCP graphs to analyse performance. Window size issues. DHCP DHCP header. Relationship to BOOTP. Discover, offer, request, decline, ACK, release. Lease, renewal and rebind times. Relay agents. DHCPv6 DNS Names and addresses, Resource Records, queries, responses, problems. MDNS. HTTP Requests, methods, request modifiers, response codes. HTTPS. SSL, TLS. Proxies. Hands on Redirects, recreating pages from packets. FTP Commands, responses, passive/active mode. Email SMTP, POP3, IMAP, commands responses. Voice and Video RTP, RTCP, SIP. IP PBXs. Traffic flows. Hands on Voice playback. SNMP MIBs, GET, TRAP, polling. Performance Baselining, high latency, Wireshark and timings, packet loss, redirections, small packets, congestion, name resolution. Security Network forensics, scanning and discovery, suspect traffic. IPsec, SSH.

Advanced HP switches training course description A hands on course covering advanced features of HP switches. The focus of the course is on Layer 3 switching advanced features. Delegates will benefit the most from this course if they can supply us with their own configurations before the course. These configurations can then be used by the trainer in the course. What will you learn Configure and troubleshoot HP layer 3 switching. Configure and troubleshoot OSPF Harden HP switches. Explain the majority of their own configurations (if configurations are supplied to us before the course). Advanced HP switches training course details Who will benefit: Technical staff working with HP switches. Prerequisites: HP switches for engineers. Duration 2 days Advanced HP switches training course content Introduction VLAN review. Tagged and untagged ports. MSTP, PVST, UDLD, BPDU guard. Hands on VLANs, diagnostic tools debug, LLDP, remote port mirroring. L3 switching What are L3 switches? L3 lite, IPv4 and IPv6, routing protocols, routing tables. IP address on VLAN, no ip address on VLAN, connected interfaces, RIP. Hands on Routing between VLANs. Configuring and troubleshooting RIP. VRRP Default gateways, dead router detection, resilience. Hands on Configuring and troubleshooting VRRP. Static routes Why use static routes? Configuring static routes, default routes. OSPF Link state protocols, operation. Router types, LSA types, area 0. Hands on Configuring and troubleshooting OSPF. QoS Layer 2 QoS, 802.1Q, priorities, dscp mapping, rate limiting. Access lists Filtering traffic through the switch, controlling access to the switch, enabling and disabling ACLs, standard ACLs, extended ACLs Security DHCP snooping, ARP protection, STP guards, switch hardening. Summary Walkthrough of delegate configurations.

HSPA and HSPA+ training course description HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) and HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) provide speeds of upto 14Mbps downlink and 5Mbps uplink. This theory-based course provides an overview of the 3GPP R5 and R6 HSDPA/HSUPA standards and the technologies which are involved. The HSPA+ R7 enhancements are also covered. What will you learn Explain the relationship between HSPA and UMTS. Describe the benefits of HSPA/HSPA+ Explain the HSPA/HSPA+ technical enhancements. Explain packet flows in HSPA/HSPA+. Recognise the migration issues involved with HSPA/HSPA+ HSPA and HSPA+ training course details Who will benefit: Anyone working with HSPA. Prerequisites: Essential UMTS Duration 2 days HSPA and HSPA+ training course contents UMTS review UMTS architecture, components, interfaces, protocols, W-CDMA, standards, 3GPPr5, 3GPPr6, evolution to HSDPA and HSPA. HSPA basics What is HSDPA, what is HSUPA, key features, system capacities, data rates, delays. Key concepts: Adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), QPSK, 16QAM, HARQ, MAC-hs, multiplexing, subframes. HSPA channels Logical, transport, physical channels, dedicated vs. shared channels, HS-PDSCH, HS-SCCH, HS-DPCCH, code multiplexing, E-DCH, Enhanced DPCCH. MAC-architecture Controlling HS-DSCH, flow control, buffering, priority queues, packet scheduling, fast packet scheduling, Selecting modulation and coding. HARQ: Packet retransmissions, Incremental redundancy, comparison with ARQ, TFRC. MAC-d, MAC-c/sh, MAC-hs, MAC-es, MAC-e. HSPA migration HSDPA in the Radio Access Network (RAN), reuse of existing UMTS components, changes required, Impact on Iub/Iur interfaces, new and modified NBAP procedures, backwards compatibility. Packet flows Packet data session setup, simultaneous voice and data, QoS, TCP flow control, WCDMA packet scheduler, mobility procedures. HSPA phase 2 (3GPP r6) What is evolved HSPA? Speeds. Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO). Optional all IP architecture. R8 and LTE.

3G training course description This course is designed to give the delegate an understanding of the technologies used within a 3G UMTS mobile network. During the course we will investigate the UMTS air interface and the use of Wideband-Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) to facilitate high speed data access, together with HSPA to offer mobile broadband services. We will describe the use of soft handover rather than hard handover procedures and soft capacity sharing. The course includes a brief exploration of the UMTS protocol stack and the use of PDP Context and QoS support features. What will you learn Explain the 3G UMTS architecture. Describe the role of a Drifting & Serving RNC. Explain the use of ARQ & HARQ for mobile broadband. Describe how IMS integrates into the architecture. Describe the use of Media Gateway Controllers. Identify the temporary identities used within 3G UMTS. 3G training course details Who will benefit: Anyone working within the telecommunications area, especially within the mobile environment. Prerequisites: Mobile communications demystified Telecommunications Introduction Duration 2 days 3G training course contents D3GPP specifications 3GPP standards body, Evolution path, Frequency and bandwidth, Conceptual model, UMTS general architecture, UTRAN architecture & radio access bearer. CDMA principles CDMA principle, Code characteristics, Code requirements. CDMA requirements Synchronization, Power control, Soft handover, Rake receiver, Antenna consideration, Multi-user detection. Radio interface protocol architecture Access stratum & non-access stratum, Overall protocol structure, Logical and transport channels, Physical channels, Protocol termination. Layer 2 Protocols Medium Access Control (MAC) Protocol, Radio Link Control (RLC) Protocol, Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) protocol, Radio Interface for Broadcast/Multicast Services. Radio Resource Control (RRC) Protocol RRC Architecture, RRC Protocol State, Broadcast of information, RRC connection management, Radio bearer management, RRC connection mobility functions, Power control, Ciphering and Integrity. Mobile procedures Mobility management states and transitions, UMTS identities, Procedures in Idle mode (location updates, cell selection/ re-selection), Circuit-switched call set-up, Packet-switched context activation and context preservation, Data transfer initialization, Soft-handover procedure. Introduction to HSPA The need for high speed data, Fast HARQ, Improved scheduling, Additional channels, Soft combining, HS-DSCH codes, Uplink HSPA vs downlink HSPA, Full HSPA, Use of MIMO, Enhanced CELL_FACH.

Total QoS training course description An advanced technical hands on course focusing on Quality of Service issues in IP networks. What will you learn Explain the difference between Integrated services and differentiated services. Explain how DiffServ works. Explain how RSVP works. Design networks supporting QoS. Total QoS training course details Who will benefit: Network administrators. Network operators. Prerequisites: TCP/IP Foundation for engineers Duration 3 days Total QoS training course contents What is QoS QoS and CoS, throwing bandwidth at the problem, Best effort services, Differentiated services, Integrated services, guarantees, the need for QoS, IETF working groups. Application issues Video, Voice, other applications, Jitter, delay, packet loss. Flows, per flow and per aggregate QoS, Stateful vs. stateless QoS, applications vs. network QoS. 'Traditional' IP QoS The TOS field and precedence, the obsolete OSPF use of the TOS field, TCP congestion avoidance. Queuing Where to use queuing, FIFO, Priority queuing, Custom queuing, Weighted Fair Queuing, CBWFQ, PQWFQ, LLQ, RED and WRED. DiffServ Architecture, DSCP, CU, packet classification and marking, meters and conditioners, Bandwidth brokers and COPS, Per Hop Behaviours, best effort PHB, Assured Forwarding PHB, Expedited forwarding PHB, Network Based Application Recognition (NBAR). Layer 2 issues Fragmentation and interleaving, compression (codecs, MPEG formats, header compression…), 802.1p, Subnet bandwidth management, Bandwidth allocators and requestor modules, the use of MPLS, traffic engineering, traffic shaping. RSVP What is RSVP? architectures, paths, path messages, reservations, traffic specifications, tear downs, guaranteed and controlled load, token buckets, Call Admission Control in voice networks, gatekeepers. Other issues Policy based routing, the Resource Allocation Protocol, QoS management tools, baselining networks, design issues, QoS in IPv6, QoS and multicasts.

IP broadcast training course description A current hot topic in recent years has been the provision of multimedia services over IP networks aka triple or quadruple play. This course investigates the characteristics of video transmission and then studies the impact on IP networks. What will you learn Use Wireshark to analyse and troubleshoot TV streams. Describe techniques, which can be used in IP to provide low uniform delay. Evaluate IPTV technologies. Design data networks, which will support IPTV. IP broadcast training course details Who will benefit: Anyone working in broadcast. Prerequisites: TCP/IP foundation for engineers Duration 3 days IP broadcast training course contents What is IPTV? What is IP? What is TV? Pixels, frames, colour, digital modulation, digital video broadcasting. SDTV, HDTV, 4K. IPTV architectures, Contribution, distribution, delivery. IPTV standards. Hands on Base IP connectivity, VLC. IPTV protocol stacks IP, TCP, UDP, RTP. IPv6. HTTP. Bandwidth requirements. Hands on IPTV bandwidth calculations. Video codecs What is a CODEC, pictures and audio, digitisation, sampling, quantisation, encoding, compressing. MPEG, bit rates, resolution. I, B, P frames, GOP. MPEG 2, MPEG 4, H.264, H.265, VP9, AV1. Hands on Analysing MPEG frames. IP issues Quality vs. bandwidth. Bandwidth, delay, latency, jitter, signalling. Routers. Hands on Analysing jitter and other performance issues. IPTV performance and QoS IP DSCP field, queuing strategies; FIFO, WFQ, custom, priority, RED. Differentiated services, Diffserv. 802.1Q. Traffic shaping. QoE. Hands on best effort versus prioritisation. UDP versus TCP Reliable, unreliable, connection oriented, connectionless. Broadcasts, multicasts and unicasts. TCP flow control, TCP and performance. Hands on TCP window sizes. RTP RTP, ports, mixers, translators, RTCP, SMPTE, FEC. Hands on RTP analysis with Wireshark. Multicasting Multicasting compared to unicasting and broadcasting, when to use and when not to use multicasting. IGMP, PIM-SM, SSM. MLD. Hands on Analysing multicast streams. OTT TV HTTP, HTTPS, Chunked HTTP. Adaptive streaming. HTML5. DASH vs HLS. Hands on Analysing HTTP streams. Security Firewalls, TLS, DRM, watermarking. Encryption. Geolocation. VPNs. IPTV architecture and other protocols Content providers, Service providers, delivery networks, home networks. Caching, Service discovery. RTSP. SAP, SDP. DHCP, DNS, NTP

IPTV training course description A current hot topic in recent years has been the provision of multimedia services over IP networks aka triple or quadruple play. This course investigates the characteristics of video transmission and then studies the impact on IP networks. What will you learn Use Wireshark to analyse and troubleshoot TV streams. Describe techniques, which can be used in IP to provide low uniform delay. Evaluate IPTV technologies. Design data networks, which will support IPTV. IPTV training course details Who will benefit: Anyone working with IPTV. Prerequisites: TCP/IP Foundation for engineers Intro to data communications & networking. Duration 3 days IPTV training course contents What is IPTV? What is IP? What is TV? Pixels, frames, colour, digital modulation, digital video broadcasting. SDTV, HDTV, 4K. IPTV architectures, Contribution, distribution, delivery. IPTV standards. Hands on Base IP connectivity, VLC. IPTV protocol stacks IP, TCP, UDP, RTP. IPv6. HTTP. Bandwidth requirements. Hands on IPTV bandwidth calculations. Video codecs What is a CODEC, pictures and audio, digitisation, sampling, quantisation, encoding, compressing. MPEG, bit rates, resolution. I, B, P frames, GOP. MPEG 2, MPEG 4, H.264, H.265, VP9, AV1. Hands on Analysing MPEG frames. IP issues Quality vs. bandwidth. Bandwidth, delay, latency, jitter, signalling. Routers. Hands on Analysing jitter and other performance issues. IPTV performance and QoS IP DSCP field, queuing strategies; FIFO, WFQ, custom, priority, RED. Differentiated services, Diffserv. 802.1Q. Traffic shaping. QoE. Hands on best effort versus prioritisation. UDP versus TCP Reliable, unreliable, connection oriented, connectionless. Broadcasts, multicasts and unicasts. TCP flow control, TCP and performance. Hands on TCP window sizes. RTP RTP, ports, mixers, translators, RTCP, SMPTE, FEC. Hands on RTP analysis with Wireshark. Multicasting Multicasting compared to unicasting and broadcasting, when to use and when not to use multicasting. IGMP, PIM-SM, SSM. MLD. Hands on Analysing multicast streams. OTT TV HTTP, HTTPS, Chunked HTTP. Adaptive streaming. HTML5. DASH vs HLS. Hands on Analysing HTTP streams. Security Firewalls, TLS, DRM, watermarking. Encryption. Geolocation. VPNs. IPTV architecture and other protocols Content providers, Service providers, delivery networks, home networks. Caching, Service discovery. RTSP. SAP, SDP. DHCP, DNS, NTP Hands on Fixing the network.

VoIP training course description Convergence of voice and data is now a common place mainstream technology. Our Voice Over IP course investigates the characteristics of voice transmission and then studies the impact on IP networks. Practical sessions with soft phones, hard phones and gateways allow the students to see all aspects of VoIP. Network analysers are used to study packets on the wire. What will you learn Describe the issues of voice and data convergence. Describe techniques, which can be used in IP to provide low uniform delay. Evaluate VoIP technologies. Design data networks, which will support voice. VoIP training course details Who will benefit: Anyone working in the field of networking or telecommunications. Prerequisites: TCP/IP foundation for engineers Intro to data communications & networking Duration 3 days VoIP training course contents What is VoIP Voice over IP, brief review of IP, brief review of telephones and voice. Configuring IP softphones What are softphones? Downloading, installing. Hands on Building the base IP network, a simple VoIP call with softphones, Internet telephony. Addressing E164, FQDN, IP addresses, URIs, DNS, SIP addressing, H.323 addressing. VoIP issues Bandwidth, Delay, Jitter, digitising voice, digitisation steps, coding, quality issues, MOS, voice compression, silence suppression, packetising voice, prioritising voice, jitter buffers. Hands on Simple packet analysis. Architectures Desktop, backbone, gateway, hard phones, PoE, integrating phones and PCs, carriers, Softswitches. Hands on Integrating Softphones, hard phones and analog phones. IP performance and QoS ITU delay recommendations, IP DSCP field, DiffServ, IP precedence, queuing strategies; FIFO, WFQ, custom, priority, RED, LLQ. VoIP protocol stack RTP, RTCP, mixers and translators, RSVP. Bandwidth, Erlang models, link layer overhead. Hands on Calculating VoIP bandwidth, analysing RTP packets. ITU Recommendation H.323 Architecture, protocols, terminals, Call setup, Gatekeepers, gateway discovery, H.323 registration with a gatekeeper. Hands on PC to PC using H.323. IETF - Session Initiation Protocol What is SIP? SIP protocol stack, SDP, Sip architecture, SIP messages, Initial SIP phone startup, SIP servers, proxy server, redirect server. Hands on PC to PC using SIP. Carrier networks Signalling systems, SS7, media gateways, Media gateway controllers, signalling gateways, MGCP, Megaco, SIGTRAN. Hands on PSTN interworking. Video over IP Video components, digital video, pictures and audio, video codecs, issues and solutions, video conferencing, multipoint video conferencing, video protocol stack. Appendix 1: Multicasting. Appendix 2: Voice/data integration without IP.

Advanced Ethernet switching training course description An advanced hands on switching course for those already familiar with the basics such as STP and VLANs. The course starts with advanced diagnostics and network monitoring moving onto switch protocols. A large part of the second day is spent implementing QoS and security such as 802.1x. What will you learn Troubleshoot switching. Explain how a number of switch protocols work, including: UDLD LLDP LACP DTP VTP/MVRP Design redundancy into switched networks. Implement QoS on switches. Harden switches. Advanced Ethernet switching training course details Who will benefit: Technical staff working with Ethernet switches. Prerequisites: None Duration 2 days Advanced Ethernet switching training course contents Switches Switch review, troubleshooting, diagnostics, L2 traceroute, UDLD, message logging, Wireshark, port mirroring, Hands on: Troubleshooting. Network management SNMP, SNMPv3, RMON, Netflow, Sflow. System logging. Hands on: Managing switches with SNMP. Syslogd. Switches and automatic configuration Auto-MDIX, LLDP, CDP, Link aggregation, LACP, Link state tracking, VLANS and tags, DTP. Hands on: Discovery, dynamic configuration. RSTP 802.1w, new port roles and states, new BPDUs, rapid convergence, topology changes, compatibility issues. L3 redundancy, VRRP, GLBP. Design issues. Hands on: RSTP, VRRP. VLANS: Registration protocols Why VTP? VTP modes, how VTP works, VTP pruning. GVRP, MVRP. Hands on: Dynamic VLANs STP variations and alternatives 802.1s (multiple spanning tree), regions, rings, L2MP, TRILL. Hands on: 802.1s Multicasting What is multicasting, Static configuration, IGMP snooping, CGMP, MVR. IPv6 MLD snooping. Hands on: Multicast through switches QoS Storm control, DSCP, 802.1Q, 802.1p, mapping, classification, policy, Ingress queues, Egress queues. Dropping frames, limiting bandwidth. Hands on: Voice through switches. More VLANS Native VLANs, Voice VLANs Security Static MAC addresses, AAA, RADIUS, Port based authentication, 802.1x, Guest VLANs, L2 attacks, SSH, HTTPS. Hands on: Hardening switches. Miscellaneous NTP, managing the MAC address table, managing system resources, SDN