Handbook

This course is intended for students with an IT or electrical engineering background to advance their understanding of network operations and how to ensure their cyber security. At the end of the course, students will be capable of building a network with routers, selecting a routing protocol for the network, and ensuring their secure operations. Routing is an essential element of all networks that can have a significant impact on the performance of a network. Also, cybersecurity has become an integral part of networked systems. So, some fundamental cybersecurity mechanisms, e.g., basic cryptography that is the basis for VPN (Virtual Private Networks), are introduced.  Students will be able to implement basic network security mechanisms such as VPN and firewalls.

This course links routing theory to practical experience. Apart from introducing the two routing algorithms widely used in the Internet, i.e., link state and distance vector, this course discusses their applications in various routing protocols, such EIGRP, OSPF, and provides the first-hand experience to teach students how to set up a small-to-medium network with a handful of routers and use various routing protocols, including basic network security mechanisms such as VPN and firewall technology.

Note: There is no prerequisite for this course. Therefore, this course tends to be self-contained and covers networking materials mostly related to the levels of Cisco CCNA and CCNA security, though a small portion of CCNP-level materials are included.