Keeping Current as a Network Engineer & Working your way to becoming a Network Architect

Keeping Current:
It’s crucial to always stay current in any industry that you work in. You want to be the one bringing new ideas to the table and possibly have new solutions to common problems that companies face. Some of the following websites I follow to keep myself current in the Network Industry along with the Data Center Industry are below.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/
 
http://www.networkworld.com/topics/lan-wan.html

Certifications are also a great way to keep current and enhance your skill sets.

Working your way to becoming a Network Architect:
My long term goal is to become a Network Architect and I have found that reading a ton of White Papers along with test results from third party vendors is going to greatly help me achieve this goal. Cisco puts out some great white papers on proven design guides that I highly recommend for anyone to read. The following link is a perfect example and yes I read the entire white paper along with others.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Campus/HA_campus_DG/hacampusdg.html

This has helped me tremendously in being able to design a better network and with my CCNP studies. Cisco also has another great resource, it’s called Cisco Validated Design Program. Check out the following link, its design guides for pretty much every type of network. These are proven and tried design guides from true industry experts.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns741/networking_solutions_program_home.html

Reading benchmark or test results is another great way to get a key understanding on how to evaluate a product before you buy it and what to look for in new hardware.  I follow this website and a majority of Vendors put third party evaluation results on their own website.

http://www.networktest.com/

OSPF Packet Format

Packet Format: Taken from,

http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Open_Shortest_Path_First 

This is useful when you are looking at a packet capture of an OSPF packet. Same can be said for any packet format visualization of any protocol. I am reviewing some OSPF reading material and figured I would post this.

All OSPF packets begin with a 24-byte header, as illustrated in Figure: OSPF Packets Consist of Nine Fields.

Figure: OSPF Packets Consist of Nine Fields

The following descriptions summarize the header fields:

• Version number - Identifies the OSPF version used.
• Type - Identifies the OSPF packet type as one of the following:
  • Hello - Establishes and maintains neighbor relationships.
  • Database description - Describes the contents of the topological database. These messages are exchanged when an adjacency is initialized.
  • Link-state request - Requests pieces of the topological database from neighbor routers. These messages are exchanged after a router discovers (by examining database-description packets) that parts of its topological database are outdated.
  • Link-state update - Responds to a link-state request packet. These messages also are used for the regular dispersal of LSAs. Several LSAs can be included within a single link-state update packet.
  • Link-state acknowledgment - Acknowledges link-state update packets.
• Packet length - Specifies the packet length, including the OSPF header, in bytes.
• Router ID - Identifies the source of the packet.
• Area ID - Identifies the area to which the packet belongs. All OSPF packets are associated with a single area.
• Checksum - Checks the entire packet contents for any damage suffered in transit.
• Authentication type - Contains the authentication type. All OSPF protocol exchanges are authenticated. The authentication type is configurable on per-area basis.
• Authentication - Contains authentication information.
• Data - Contains encapsulated upper-layer information.