NETWORKING ESSENTIALS EXAM

Summary

The exam consisted of 58 questions and concentrated on a few main topics.

In my opinion the Networking Essentials Book from Microsoft Press didn’t prepare me well enough for the questions on the exam.

Asked

• Bridges, routers, brouters, repeaters and gateways. Know this inside-out. Know which OSI layer each operate in. Given numerous scenarios, know which device would be best suited. Eg. You have 2 networks, 1 NT using TCP/IP, 1 Novell using IPX/SPX what device would you use? This is a simplified version of a question. They get much more complex. Know about segmentation, broadcast storms, connecting dissimilar media etc.
• 4 or 5 questions about network troubleshooting including using special tools such as DVM’s, TDR’s, Network Monitors etc. Questions are quite specific about the functions and features of each of these tools. Know this well!
• WAN
• A few questions about share-level vs. User-level sharing. Nothing too difficult here, mainly common sense
• 1 question about what multiplexing is
• 1 question about fault tolerance. Something like: What would be the cheapest way to implement fault tolerance that would allow for a maximum downtime of 2 days. RAID 0, RAID 5, Disk Duplexing, Tape Backup
• 2 questions about advance WAN technologies. Know the differences and features of X.25, Frame Relay, ATM, ISDN, FDDI but nothing on SONET or SMDS
• Interconnectivity between NOS’s
• Know which protocols are routable and which aren’t. A few questions can be narrowed down to the correct answer if you know this well
• A couple of questions about feature of PPP vs. SLIP. Know that PPP offers a dynamic allocation of IP addresses similar to DHCP
• A couple of questions about WINS and DHCP. Similar to: I can PING my server using the IP address but not using the NETBIOS name. Why not?
• At least 6 questions giving network scenarios with desired results and optional results. A proposed solution is given and you must determine how many of the desired and optional results are satisfied (if any). Some of these got quite complex.
• TCP/IP frame size was referred to twice although they was no reference to this in my study material
• Scenario: My routed network has 2 subnets, 1 Token ring operating at 4 mbps, the second an Ethernet subnet. When a user copies a 5 meg file from the TR to Ethernet network it takes 4 minutes, but the other way takes about 20 seconds. Why would this happen. a). TR subnet is slower b). Packet size on TR is bigger than on the Ethernet network …..I forgot the other choices
• 2 or 3 questions about network card IRQ and conflicts with other cards. Know that IRQ 5 is preferred for network card and that a computer with LPT2 or sound card may cause a conflict since they both prefer IRQ 5.

Didn’t Ask

• Synchronous vs. Asynchronous communications
• Surprisingly to me there were no questions about what functions each of OSI layers perform
• Groupware
• NT server groups i.e. Local, Global, Special and Built-in