Modern businesses’ operations have become increasingly reliant on computer networks. Businesses require reliable and secure networks for everything from simple email communications to storing files on company servers. These systems’ network administrators go through network management training, which typically includes learning about the physical hardware that creates networks, the software required for IP address distribution, and methods for securing and troubleshooting networks.
In most network management training programs, students learn about basic networking equipment first. The modem, which establishes an Internet connection, and the routers, which distribute the signal to multiple machines, are examples of this. Routers not only share an Internet connection among multiple computers, but also connect the machines to form a local area network (LAN). A single router can create a network with a small number of computers, but larger networks require network administrators to use network switches to connect many computers to a router.
IP addresses are used computers to connect to other computers on a local network or the Internet. Each address is a number that identifies a specific network machine. These numbers enable any machine on the LAN to request data from another. A local network has several IP addresses for machines that are directly connected to it, but the entire network is only visible to the Internet through a single IP address, according to network management training. The difference between IP addresses on a LAN and IP addresses for machines outside the network will be taught to network management students.
Students in network management classes are typically taught how IP addresses are distributed, both Internet-facing servers and within local networks. Although Internet servers have unique IP addresses, they are typically associated with domain names that are easier to remember, such as wiseGEEK.com. These IP addresses are distributed in local networks either manually a network administrator or automatically software that uses the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). On network routers, this software takes the form of a server program, and on individual machines, it takes the form of a client program. The client and server software work together to assign a unique IP address to each machine on the local network, which can save the network administrator a lot of time.
Any network administrator must be able to troubleshoot network-related issues. This entails learning how to use a variety of network diagnostic tools to identify both broken network components and security vulnerabilities. These include applications that can map the path through which data requests travel on a network and programs that can check if individual machines or network components respond to network connections. Administrators can usually isolate the location and cause of problems with this component of network management training in order to fix them.