The Morrell Switching and Network Architecture Certification (MSNAC) course is designed to provide you with the fundamental knowledge necessary to understand, design and implement a small to medium sized enterprise network with basic to intermediate switching functionality. The TCP/IP and the OSI model are used extensively in approaching and understanding the networking concepts being communicated.
The course is centered on switching, so the Data Link Layer, and to a lesser extent the Physical Layer, are the primary focus of the course and are covered in depth. Concepts such as switching, VLANs, trunks, QoS, STP and Link Aggregation are just some of the topics that are covered within the domain of Layer Two.
Upper layers are also reviewed including the Network Layer, where IP addressing, subnetting and routing are explained, the Transport layer, which includes concepts such as segmentation and session tracking, as well as the Application Layer, where several commonly used Application Layer protocols are examined and explained.
A whole module is dedicated to reviewing and understanding network architecture and design concepts as well as business considerations and how to translate and map business needs to technical design criteria.
Although this course is centered on the Morrell line of switches and networking equipment, it is by no means limited to Morrell devices. The concepts learned in this course can be applied to networks regardless of which vendor’s equipment is being used.
The course is separated into twenty modules, each of which is further subdivided into several submodules which are presented as single videos. At the end of most modules, there is a short quiz with five to ten questions testing your understanding of the concepts described. The following lists the modules included in this course with a brief description of each:
- Introduction: Introduces the course, describes the content, introduces Morrell and describes the course overview.
- Network Fundamentals 1: Review of network devices, network topologies and the OSI and TCP/IP models.
- Network Fundamentals 2: Layer 2, 3, and 4, addressing.
- Physical Layer: Understanding physical network components, Ethernet, Physical Layer and physical examples of products and equipment.
- Data Link Layer: Layer 2 technologies, collision domains, MAC addressing and Ethernet frame format.
- Switching Technologies and Concepts 1: Switching fundamentals, ports MAC learning and aging, frames, MAC address table, and PoE.
- Switching Technologies and Concepts 2: VLANs, access and trunk ports, QoS, bandwidth control, storm control and port mirroring
- Morrell Unmanaged Switches: Showcase available unmanaged switches
- Morrell Managed Switches: Showcasing managed switches, connecting to the console, understanding the CLI and basic configuration steps
- Switching Technologies and Concepts 3: VLANs, trunking, 802.1Q and Native VLAN
- Switching Technologies and Concepts 4: Spanning tree protocol, root bridge selection, PortFast, BPDUs and Link Aggregation
- Learning the Morrell Web Interface: Showcase of the web interface of the Morrell devices
- Layer 3: IPv4 addressing, subnetting and allocation of subnets for company networks
- Layer 4 Part 1: Layer 4 protocols TCP/UDP
- Layer 4 Part 2: Layer 4 protocols TCP/UDP
- Network Architecture Fundamentals: Network architecture principles and fundamentals
- Routing Fundamentals 1: Static and dynamic routing
- Routing Fundamentals 2: Static and dynamic routing
- Application Protocols and Services: Protocols such as DNS, DHCP, Telnet, SSH and NAT will be described
- Course Summary: Summary of the course
