Learning networks?

[Dougan]

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone could possibly point me to a place that could explain networks in lamens terms. How they work and so forth. Im not talking about small networks, but rather larger networks. Like I work for a cable company, and as far as I can tell they run 3 different networks. One that is local, one that is somewhat internal, and the large network. I am just curious as to what the IT guy looks at when he is watching the network, and am real curious where I can learn about this myself. So that possibly in the future, maybe ill beable to do what he does. Thanks a ton!

[Ray@VSK]

Drawing a picture really will not help u @ all if you know nothing about networking it's basically like the internets highways & the intersections or highway lights are configured routers & such.

I spent many years in this field & even have degrees to show for it but networking in a nutshell I couldn't even start ;)

[Dougan]

Well, I kind of get a small jist of it, i think, but was curious as to what these guys are learning and where from.

[injinj]

Try the computer networks course at OCW: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-829Computer-NetworksFall2002/CourseHome/index.htm

Pick up ethereal and capture some packets while browsing. Nearly every protocol traversing your network is described in RFCs: http://www.ietf.org/rfc

[su root]

Most of the network monitoring is self taught. If you sat down at his console, I bet you would not be able to understand anything there when he is monitoring the network.

Did you want to understand it, or did you want to just get a broad understanding of how networking works?

If you want to understand everything, I would suggest a Cisco networking course, like CCNA.

If you are just looking for an understanding, then I hate to say it, but I think your best bet is to start off with a book like "Networking for dummies", and I would highly recommend that you learn about the OSI model. You won't go anywhere in networking without knowing about that. (have you ever heard anyone say "Layer 2" or "Layer 1" or "layer 3", etc.? that's the OSI model they're talking about.). After that, you should have an idea about what you want to know more about.

[Dougan]

Yes, I have heard of the osi model and the layers so forth. I was thinking of taking a cisco course. Thanks a ton ill look into things of that nature.