Preface

When breaking into the networking industry, you often hear people ask which certification is the best one to start pursuing. The CompTIA Network+ N10-008 certification is a vendor-neutral networking certification designed to help learners and certification holders to obtain the technical skills and hands-on experience needed to design, build, maintain, and troubleshoot modern-day network infrastructure to support the ever-growing demands of the network services, technologies, and resources that organizations heavily rely upon to support their business processes and users. Furthermore, this certification helps learners to validate their skills that are needed to support various types of network infrastructure and architectures on any platform while providing the learner with the specific skills that are needed by network professionals within the industry.

As a cybersecurity and networking lecturer with years of industry and academic experience, my goal is to help aspiring network and security professionals break into the industry. As technologies advance quickly, certification vendors such as CompTIA update their certification objectives to ensure learners acquire the latest knowledge and skills needed in the industry. Likewise, this new edition contains all-new updated content relevant to the CompTIA Network+ N10-008 exam objectives with practice questions, exercises, and labs to help reinforce learning and development. During the writing process of this book, I’ve used a student-centric and learner-friendly approach, helping you to easily understand the most complex topics, terminologies, and how to design, implement, and troubleshoot networks.

In this new edition, learners will become more aware of the various network architectures that are used within data centers and cloud service providers’ environments, such as Software-Defined Network (SDN), and understand how SDN can be integrated into existing network infrastructures. Additionally, learners will encounter in-depth emphasis on new and emerging wireless standards and how businesses can leverage the flexibility of wireless technologies to support their business needs. Furthermore, we offer a dedicated focus on the network security principles, cyberattacks, threats, and network hardening techniques that are used to secure organizations from threat actors and data breaches.

This book begins by introducing you to networking models such as the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) and Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), which are responsible for helping systems exchange data over a wired or wireless network using a set of protocols that describes how data is encoded and formatted before it’s sent to its destination. Then, you will explore common network topologies and network types used within many organizations around the world. Next, you will discover common Ethernet standards and how they are implemented in various network components and cable types within the modern network infrastructure. Additionally, you will gain a solid understanding of how to implement both IPv4 and IPv6 addressing within a network.

Furthermore, you will learn how to break down an IPv4 network block using a step-by-step approach for performing subnetting and Variable Length Subnet Mask (VLSM) for a multi-branch network. You will also explore common network protocols, services, and protocol types that are found on most modern networks. Then, you will discover data center architectures and the need for virtualization and cloud computing.

The second part of this book describes aspects of network implementation such as the role and function of common networking devices and security appliances required by organizations around the world. Then, you will explore routing and switching mechanisms that are used by routers and switches to efficiently forward messages to their destinations over a network. Additionally, you will learn about wireless networking, technologies, and security standards that are needed to design and implement a resilient and secure wireless network infrastructure.

The third part of this book covers network operations, examining best practices for measuring, monitoring, and improving the performance of a network, and detecting and resolving interface issues on devices. Furthermore, you will explore common plans, policies, and procedures that are developed and maintained within organizations to improve the security posture of their network infrastructure, and common agreements for employees. Additionally, you will discover how organizations implement High Availability (HA) within their networks to ensure critical services and resources are available for users, along with a look at disaster recovery best practices.

The final part of this book focuses on network security and troubleshooting concepts, covering the fundamentals of network security and risk management strategies for companies. Furthermore, you will learn about various types of cyber-attacks and threats on wired and wireless networks, and how threat actors perform human-based attacks. Furthermore, you will learn network security hardening techniques, wireless security best practices, common remote access technologies, and physical security. Lastly, you will discover how to use network troubleshooting methodology to efficiently discover and resolve common wired and wireless network issues using both hardware- and software-based tools.

By completing this book, you will be taken through an amazing journey from beginner to professional in terms of learning, understanding, and developing the skills and confidence needed to pass the official CompTIA Network+ N10-008 certification exam, while becoming well versed in a variety of network administration and security solutions as an aspiring network professional within the industry.