Description:
In order to become a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE), you're required to pass the Networking Essentials exam. If you've spent significant time maintaining or administering local-area networks (LANs), you're halfway there as the exam deals with such common problems as topology selection and protocol comparison. But exams and the real world aren't the same thing. You'll benefit from a guide to the exam that explains where it intersects with and where it diverges from reality. Exam Prep: Networking Essentials begins with an extremely elementary explanation of what computer networks are and why they're desirable. The book then quickly moves on to topologies, protocols, and the other considerations involved in designing, expanding, or upgrading a LAN. Networking Essentials also covers cabling, network interface cards, and multi-protocol LANs, which are all on the exam. Each subject's treatment comprises some readable prose, some thoroughly detailed definitions, and some tables, such as those that list various Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards that pertain to LANs. You'll find quiz questions (the answers appear in the back of the book) and some real-world scenarios in which you must do such things as justify the extra expense of Ethernet over ARCnet. A companion CD-ROM includes excellent test-simulator software.
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