Introduction

The Cisco Networking Academy is a comprehensive e-learning program that provides students with Internet technology skills. A Networking Academy delivers web-based content, online assessment, student performance tracking, and hands-on labs to prepare students for industry-standard certifications. The CCNA curriculum includes four courses oriented around the topics on the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification.

LAN Switching and Wireless, CCNA Exploration Companion Guide is the official supplement textbook to be used with v4 of the CCNA Exploration LAN Switching and Wireless online curriculum of the Networking Academy.

This book goes beyond earlier editions of the Cisco Press Companion Guides by providing many alternative explanations and examples as compared with the course. You can use the online curriculum as normal and use this companion guide to help solidify your understanding of all the topics through the alternative examples.

The basis for this book, as well as the online curriculum, is to provide the reader with a thorough understanding of LAN switching and wireless technologies beyond that necessary for the CCNA certification exam. The commands and web-based GUI utilities for configuring LAN switching and wireless are not very difficult. The challenge is to understand the operation of these technologies and protocols and their role in the network.

The objective of this book is to explain LAN switching and wireless technologies. Every concept is methodically explained with no assumptions made of the reader's knowledge of LAN switching or wireless technologies. The only exceptions are if a concept is beyond the scope of this course or is covered in CCNP, and then it is noted within the text.

Readers are encouraged to peruse the resources managed by Wayne Lewis at cisco.honolulu.hawaii.edu. Please e-mail Wayne Lewis at waynel@hawaii.edu for more information about CCNP and network security instructor training and for access to more resources for this course and other CCNP, IP telephony, QoS, and network security courses.

Goal of This Book

First and foremost, by providing a fresh, complementary perspective on the content, this book is intended to help you learn all the required materials of the LAN Switching and Wireless course in the Networking Academy CCNA Exploration curriculum. As a secondary goal, the text is intended as a mobile replacement for the online curriculum for individuals who do not always have Internet access. In those cases, you can instead read the appropriate sections of the book, as directed by your instructor, and learn the same material that is covered in the online curriculum. Another secondary goal is to serve as your offline study material to prepare for the CCNA exam.

Audience for This Book

This book's main audience is anyone taking the CCNA Exploration LAN Switching and Wireless course of the Cisco Networking Academy curriculum. Many Academies use this textbook as a required tool in the course, and other Academies recommend the Companion Guides as an additional source of study and practice materials.

Book Features

The educational features of this book focus on supporting topic coverage, readability, and practice of the course material to facilitate your full understanding of the course material.

Topic Coverage

The following features give you a thorough overview of the topics covered in each chapter so that you can make constructive use of your study time:

• Objectives: Listed at the beginning of each chapter, the objectives reference the core concepts covered in the chapter. The objectives match the objectives stated in the corresponding chapters of the online curriculum; however, the question format in the Companion Guide encourages you to think about finding the answers as you read the chapter.

• "How-to" feature: When this book covers a set of steps that you need to perform for certain tasks, this book lists the steps as a how-to list. When you are studying, the icon helps you easily refer to this feature as you skim through the book.

• Notes, tips, cautions, and warnings: These are short sidebars that point out interesting facts, time-saving methods, and important safety issues.

• Chapter summaries: At the end of each chapter is a summary of the chapter's key concepts. It provides a synopsis of the chapter and serves as a study aid.

Readability

The author has compiled, edited, and in most cases rewritten the material so that it has a more conversational tone that follows a consistent and accessible college-reading level. In addition, the following features have been updated to assist your understanding of the networking vocabulary:

• Key terms: Each chapter begins with a list of key terms, along with a page-number reference from inside the chapter. The terms are listed in the order in which they are explained inside the chapter. This handy reference allows you to find a term, flip to the page where the term appears, and see the term used in context. The Glossary defines all the key terms.

• Glossary: This book contains an all-new Glossary with more than 150 terms.

Practice

Practice makes perfect. This new Companion Guide offers you ample opportunities to put what you learn to practice. You will find the following features valuable and effective in reinforcing the instruction that you receive:

• Check Your Understanding questions and answer key: Updated review questions are presented at the end of each chapter as a self-assessment tool. These questions match the style of questions that you see in the online course. The Appendix, "Check Your Understanding and Challenge Questions Answer Key," provides an answer key to all the questions and includes an explanation of each answer.

• (NEW) Challenge questions and activities: Additional—and more challenging—review questions and activities are presented at the end of chapters. These questions are purposefully designed to be similar to the more complex styles of questions you might see on the CCNA exam. This section might also include activities to help prepare you for the exams. The Appendix provides the answers.

• Packet Tracer activities: Interspersed throughout the chapters, you'll find many activities to work with the Cisco Packet Tracer tool. Packet Tracer allows you to create networks, visualize how packets flow in the network, and use basic testing tools to determine whether the network would work. When you see this icon, you can use Packet Tracer with the listed file to perform a task suggested in this book. The activity files are available in this book's CD-ROM; Packet Tracer software, however, is available through the Academy Connection website. Ask your instructor for access to Packet Tracer.

Labs and Study Guide

The supplementary book LAN Switching and Wireless, CCNA Exploration Labs and Study Guide (ISBN: 1-58713-202-8) by Cisco Press contains all the labs from the curriculum plus additional challenge labs and study guide material. The end of each chapter of this Companion Guide indicates with icons what labs, activities, and Packet Tracer activities are available in the Labs and Study Guide.

• Lab references: This icon notes the hands-on labs created for this chapter in the online curriculum. Within the LAN Switching and Wireless, CCNA Exploration Labs and Study Guide you will find additional study guide material created by the author of that book.

• (NEW) Packet Tracer Companion activities: Many of the Hands-on Labs include Packet Tracer Companion Activities where you can use Packet Tracer to complete a simulation of the lab. Look for this icon in the LAN Switching and Wireless, CCNA Exploration Labs and Study Guide for Hands-on Labs that have a Packet Tracer Companion.

• (NEW) Packet Tracer Skills Integration Challenge activities: These activities require you to pull together several skills learned from the chapter to successfully complete one comprehensive exercise. Look for this icon in the LAN Switching and Wireless, CCNA Exploration Labs and Study Guide for instructions on how to perform the Packet Tracer Skills Integration Challenge for this chapter.

A Word About Packet Tracer

Packet Tracer is a self-paced, visual, interactive teaching and learning tool developed by Cisco. Lab activities are an important part of networking education. However, lab equipment can be a scarce resource. Packet Tracer provides a visual simulation of equipment and network processes to offset the challenge of limited equipment. Students can spend as much time as they like completing standard lab exercises through Packet Tracer and have the option to work from home. Although Packet Tracer is not a substitute for real equipment, it allows students to practice using a command-line interface. This "e-doing" capability is a fundamental component of learning how to configure routers and switches from the command line.

Packet Tracer v4.x is available only to Cisco Networking Academies through the Academy Connection website.

The course includes essentially three types of Packet Tracer activities. This book uses an icon system to indicate which type of Packet Tracer activity is available. The icons are intended to give you a sense of the purpose of the activity and the amount of time you need to allot to complete it. The three types of Packet Tracer activities follow:

• Packet Tracer Activity: This icon identifies straightforward exercises interspersed throughout the chapters where you can practice or visualize a specific topic. The activity files for these exercises are available on this book's CD-ROM. These activities take less time to complete than the Packet Tracer Companion and Challenge activities.

• Packet Tracer Companion: This icon identifies exercises that correspond to the hands-on labs of the course. You can use Packet Tracer to complete a simulation of the hands-on lab or complete a similar "lab." The Companion Guide points these out at the end of each chapter, but look for this icon and the associated exercise file in LAN Switching and Wireless, CCNA Exploration Labs and Study Guide for hands-on labs that have a Packet Tracer Companion.

• Packet Tracer Skills Integration Challenge: This icon identifies activities that require you to pull together several skills learned from the chapter to successfully complete one comprehensive exercise. The Companion Guide points these out at the end of each chapter, but look for this icon and the associated exercise file in LAN Switching and Wireless, CCNA Exploration Labs and Study Guide for instructions on how to perform a Packet Tracer Skills Integration Challenge.

How This Book Is Organized

The book covers the major topic headings in the same sequence as the online curriculum for the CCNA Exploration LAN Switching and Wireless course. This book has seven chapters with the same numbers and names as the online course chapters.

For people reading this book without being in the CCNA Exploration LAN Switching and Wireless class, or just using this book for self-study, the sequence of topics in each chapter provides a logical sequence for learning the material presented.

Each chapter has a reference topology that is used to maintain a common framework from which to build upon the LAN switching and wireless concepts. The single topology per chapter allows for better continuity and easier understanding of switching commands, operations, and outputs, as well as web-based GUI utility mastery.

• Chapter 1, "LAN Design," provides an overview of the switched LAN architecture for small- and medium-sized businesses. The concept of converged network services within hierarchical networking is emphasized. You also learn how to select the appropriate switch to implement at each hierarchical layer in the switched LAN topology.

• Chapter 2, "Basic Switch Concepts and Configuration," reviews and reinforces the underlying concepts included within the IEEE 802.3 LAN standard and introduces the role of an Ethernet switch within a LAN. The basic configuration of switches to support voice, video, and data transmission is introduced, as well as basic network management options and rudimentary security measures.

• Chapter 3, "VLANs," provides an introduction to types of VLANs, port membership within VLANs, and VLAN trunking. VLANs are the logical basis upon which switched LANs are built. Configuring, verifying, and troubleshooting VLANs are discussed.

• Chapter 4, "VTP," examines the VLAN trunking protocol. VTP automates many of the VLAN configuration options in a switched LAN, but requires a good conceptual understanding of how the Layer 2 protocol operates. The underlying operation of VTP and VTP pruning are explored, followed by detailed guidance on VTP configuration.

• Chapter 5, "STP," provides a detailed analysis of the original IEEE 802.1D spanning-tree protocol (STP) and the improved IEEE 802.1w rapid spanning-tree protocol (RSTP). The operation of STP is complex and requires a careful, measured approach, which is provided herein. Compared to the underlying operation of STP, the configuration of 802.1D and 802.1w is relatively straightforward. Both 802.1D and 802.1w result in a logical, loop-free, Layer 2 topology with physical redundancy.

• Chapter 6, "Inter-VLAN Routing," explores three methods of inter-VLAN routing: one router interface per VLAN, router-on-a-stick, and multilayer switching. The configuration of the first two methods on access layer switches is detailed. Verification and troubleshooting inter-VLAN routing scenarios round out the chapter.

• Chapter 7, "Basic Wireless Concepts and Configuration," provides a quick introduction to all the important elements necessary to understand wireless technologies and standards. A web-based GUI is used to configure wireless routers in constructing the LAN/WLAN reference topology for the chapter. Common troubleshooting issues specific to wireless LANs are explored.

• The Appendix, "Check Your Understanding and Challenge Questions Answer Key," provides the answers to the Check Your Understanding questions that you find at the end of each chapter. It also includes answers for the Challenge Questions and Activities that conclude most chapters.

• The Glossary provides a compiled list of all the key terms that appear throughout this book.

About the CD-ROM

The CD-ROM included with this book provides many useful tools and information to support your education:

• Packet Tracer Activity files: These are files to work through the Packet Tracer Activities referenced throughout the book, as indicated by the Packet Tracer Activity icon.

• Taking Notes: This section includes a .txt file of the chapter objectives to serve as a general outline of the key topics of which you need to take note. The practice of taking clear, consistent notes is an important skill not only for learning and studying the material but for on-the-job success as well. Also included in this section is "A Guide to Using a Networker's Journal" PDF booklet providing important insight into the value of the practice of using a journal, how to organize a professional journal, and some best practices on what, and what not, to take note of in your journal.

• IT Career Information: This section includes a student guide to applying the toolkit approach to your career development. Learn more about entering the world of Information Technology as a career by reading two informational chapters excerpted from The IT Career Builder's Toolkit: "Communication Skills" and "Technical Skills."

• Lifelong Learning in Networking: As you embark on a technology career, you will notice that it is ever-changing and evolving. This career path provides new and exciting opportunities to learn new technologies and their applications. Cisco Press is one of the key resources to plug into on your quest for knowledge. This section of the CD-ROM provides an orientation to the information available to you and tips on how to tap into these resources for lifelong learning.

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