I.

Switching
 Switching is process to forward packets coming in from one port to a port leading towards the
destination. When data comes on a port it is called ingress, and when data leaves a port or goes
out it is called egress. A communication system may include number of switches and nodes.
 VLAN: Virtual LAN; a logical network existing on one or more Layer 2 switches, forming a
single broadcast domain.
 VLAN trunk: A physical link that can carry traffic on more than one VLAN through logical
tagging.
 VTP: VLAN Trunking Protocol; used to communicate VLAN configuration information among
a group of switches.
 DTP: Dynamic Trunking Protocol; a Cisco proprietary method of negotiating a trunk link
between two switches.
 Spanning Tree Protocol (STP): A protocol communicated between Layer 2 switches that
attempts to detect a loop in the topology before it forms, thus preventing a bridging loop from
occurring.
 EtherChannel: A logical link made up of bundled or aggregated physical links.
 Inter-VLAN routing The function performed by a Layer 3 device that connects and forwards
packets between multiple VLANs.

II. Monitoring and Troubleshooting

 Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) A protocol used between an SNMP manager
and an SNMP agent to obtain data about device operation or to set configuration
 SPAN Also known as Switched Port Analyzer, where a switch mirrors traffic from a source
interface or VLAN onto a different interface for monitoring or analysis purposes.
 Syslog System message logs that are generated by a switch and can be collected locally or sent to
and collected on a remote server.
 IP Service Level Agreement (IP SLA) A feature within Cisco IOS that can be used to test how
specific types of traffic are being handled end to end across a network.

III. Routing
 Routing is the process of selecting a path for traffic in a network or between or across multiple
networks

 RIP (Routing Information Protocol) An Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) that uses distance
vector logic and router hop count as the metric. RIP version 1 (RIP-1) has become unpopular
 Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) A popular link-state IGP that uses a link-state database and
the Shortest Path First (SPF) algorithm to calculate the best routes to reach each known subnet.
 EIGRP (Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol) An advanced version of IGRP
developed by Cisco. Provides superior convergence properties and operating efficiency and
combines the advantages of link-state protocols with those of distance-vector protocols.
 Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) An exterior routing protocol designed to exchange prefix
information between different autonomous systems. The information includes a rich set of
characteristics called path attributes, which in turn allows for great flexibility regarding routing
choices.
 Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP) A routing protocol that was designed to exchange routing
information between different autonomous systems. EGP has been replaced by BGP and is no
longer supported in Cisco IOS.

 ACL (access control list) A list configured on a router to control packet flow through the router,
such as to prevent packets with a certain IP address from leaving a particular interface on the
router.
 ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) Defined in RFC 826, a protocol used on LANs so that an
IP host can discover the MAC address of another device that uses a particular IP address.
 Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) A standard (RFC 2131) protocol by which a
host can dynamically broadcast a request for a server to assign to it an IP address, along with
other configuration settings, including a subnet mask and default gateway IP address.
 Dynamic Multipoint VPN (DMVPN) A virtual private network (VPN) technology that enables
a tunnel to be set up or torn down between two sites on an as-needed basis.
 Network Address Translation (NAT) A mechanism for reducing the need for globally unique
IPv4 addresses. NAT enables an organization with addresses that are not globally unique to
connect to the Internet by translating those addresses into globally routable address space..
 VoIP Voice over IP. The transport of voice traffic inside IP packets over an IP network.