Foundry Networks Certified Network Professional
The FNCP awards the designation of the Foundry Networks Certified Network Professional (FNCNP). This is achieved through completion of an online exam comprised of advanced concepts and applications in STP, OSPF, and BGP technologies and in-depth knowledge of Foundry products. The exam consists of 96 multiple-choice questions including a series of network application questions and typically takes 90 minutes to complete. The exam questions are very challenging and prior "hands on" experience is essential. Foundry's testing partner, Prometric, provides fast and simple online registration. You can register for the exam 24 hours a day worldwide.

Costs and Benefits
The cost of the certification exam is small, but the value is high.

Costs
The fee for the online exam is US $150.00. This fee primarily covers the costs of providing secure, reliable, and trusted scores by Prometric.

Benefits

• Enhances career advancement
• Increased industry recognition
• Increases credibility
• Validates knowledge and skills
• Provides a competitive advantage
• Maintains proficiency
• Special invite to participate in early access courses or Beta courses.
• Added to the subscription distribution of the Foundry’s news letter (Switched)
• Authorized use of Foundry Networks’ logo on business cards
• Special discounts off designated Advanced Foundry Networks courses

A FNCNP certified individual is able to:

• Install and configure Foundry switches and routers in a medium to large sized networks
• Implement advanced features of BGP, OSPF, and Spanning Tree technologies in an existing network
• Provide level 2 support and diagnostics, and fault isolation

How to prepare
Individuals pursuing a Certified Network Professional (CNP) certification should have earned the entry certification (FNCNE) prior to taking the FNCNP. The Advanced Switch Router Configuration and Maintenance (TRNG-0405) prepare the candidate for the FNCNE certification.

Courses & Exams

Advanced Switching / Routing Configuration and Management
(TRNG-0405)

Prerequisites
To fully benefit from this course you should have attended the Basic Switch/Router Configuration and Management (TRNG 0103). It is also recommended that you have previous exposure to switching and routing issues in a Foundry Networks environment. You should possess: a working knowledge of the listed technologies and the following personal hardware during the week of attendance:

Working Knowledge of:

• Spanning Tree Protocol 802.1d
• Inter-domain routing protocols (RIP, OSPF, static routes)
• Exterior-domain routing protocols (BGP)
• FNCNE level knowledge or equivalent of Layer 2 switching and Layer 3 IP routing
• Foundry Networks command line interface (CLI)

We strongly recommend that students bring their own PC to act as the console during labs.

Recommended Personal hardware

• Laptop Personal Computer with W95 or higher
• Ethernet NIC card
• CD Drive
• Serial Interface

 Course Content
The TRNG-0405 course is an in-depth study of layer 2 and layer 3 features of Foundry Networks switches and routers including advanced technologies such as Spanning Tree, OSPF, and BGP. It covers network design, system configuration and troubleshooting using the Foundry switches and routers.

Course Objectives
After completing this course, the student will be able to:

• Implement advanced designs and configurations in Layer 2 and 3 Data Networks
• Implement advanced STP, OSPF and BGP features on Foundry Switches / Routers
• Tune the Foundry Networks Layer 2 network for fast STP failover
• Design and configure multi-homed networks with BGP attributes and scale IBGP with route relectors
• Interconnect Foundry Switch Routers based on a network design
• Troubleshoot the in class design implementations using the CLI show commands

Course Outline

Spanning Tree

Review of 802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol

• Describe the Purpose of 802.1 D Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)
• Describe STP Device Titles and the roles they play in defining an Active Path to the Root Bridge
• Describe the Device Title Election Process
• Describe the two types of Bridge Protocol Data Units
• Describe the five STP port states
• Describe an STP recovery from a Topology Change
• Predict how Spanning Tree will converge on a given network topology

Root Bridge Election & Path Cost

• List the Spanning Tree Defaults for Foundry Hardware
• Define Spanning Tree Bridge and Port Parameters
• Record STP parameters of a network, and predict the Root Bridge Election
• Change STP parameters so that a different Root Bridge is elected based on your design
• Change STP timers so that a spanning tree is resolved more quickly
• Record the topology change history

Spanning Tree Applications

• Describe the Hierarchal Model for Enterprise Switching
• List Foundry Networks Spanning Tree Features and where they are applicable

Rapid Spanning Tree 802.1W- Draft 3

• Shorten the STP convergence time by applying Rapid Spanning Tree
• Verify that the convergence (failover) time is shortened
• Record the (failback) time
• Describe why failover and failback times are different
• Adjust the Forward-Delay to shorten the 802.1W failback time
• Choose which ports can benefit from Draft 3 of 802.1 W
  Single Instance Spanning Tree
• Simplify Spanning Tree environments by reducing the topology to one STP instance
• Describe how CPU resources are conserved with one STP instance compared to many STP instances
• Implement conversions to Single Instance Spanning Tree and back to Per VLAN without causing network disruption

Per VLAN Spanning Tree

• Load-balance the traffic of two VLANs across two uplinks
• Verify that traffic from either active link will failover to the other active link
• Implement Rapid Spanning Tree in the PerVLAN application and have rapid failover between the active links
• Determine which switches will provide 802.1w Draft 3 failover depending on the VLAN uplink being broken

Per VLAN Group Spanning Tree

• Describe a Topology Group as a general tool for organizing layer 2 paths
• Reduce CPU usage and maintain uplink load balancing by grouping several VLANS under two STP instances
• Verify that all VLAN member traffic from either active link will failover to the other active link
• Implement Rapid Spanning Tree in a Per VLAN Group STP application and have rapid failover between the active links
• Verify that implementing Per VLAN Group Spanning tree has not compromised Rapid STP failover time
  VRRPe in a Spanning Tree Environment
• Test the advantages of two different layer 2 designs that implement VRRPe in a network core
• Describe how a Backup Router becomes Master through non-reception of Hello packets
• Configure 2 VRIDs and verify both L2 and L3 failover between them
• Observe the effect of VRRPe hello packet interruption and delay

OSPF

OSPF Adjacency

• Describe the OSPF Packet Types
• Describe the process of OSPF Neighbor Adjacency
• View the states of the adjacency process
• Use the OSPF debug commands to troubleshoot adjacency
• Describe how Link State costs will effect the route table
• Configure Link State costs
• Configure MD5 Authentication

OSPF Database

• Describe the six different Link State Advertisements LSA's and their uses
• Describe the difference between internal and external LSA's
• Record the LSA's stored in a router database
• Describe the effect that Normal OSPF area boundaries have on LSA migration
• Verify this migration in the lab

OSPF Route Summarization

• Configure redistribution to allow Multiple Interior routing protocols to coexist in the same network
• Describe why route summarization is beneficial to an OSPF network
• Recognize when routes should be summarized
• Design and configure Intra-Area and Inter-Area Summarization
• Configure, monitor and troubleshoot redistribution problems

Administrative Distances

• Define an Administrative Distance
• Describe the difference between an Administrative Distance and a Metric
• Define default Administrative Distances
• Modify an Administrative Distance

Blocking External LSA's

• List the LSA's types that flood into Normal areas
• List the LSA's types that flood into Stub areas
• List the LSA's types that flood into Totally Stubby areas
• List the LSA's types that flood into Not So Stubby areas (NSSA)
• Use the show ip ospf database commands to recognize what areas should be made into a particular type to enhance network performance
• Make area type changes and verify reduction of external LSA's in OSPF databases
  OSPF Filters
• List the filter types and describe their behavior
• Design and deploy filters to block route updates and traffic

BGP

BGP Fundamentals

• List the BGP message types and describe their purposes
• Explain the BGP session states
• Describe how BGP operates
• Describe how BGP attributes are used as basic routing policy tools
• Configure and troubleshoot BGP session startup
• Explain why attributes are so important in BGP

Route Filtering and Selection

• Describe the Route Exchange and Filtering processes including; IP tables, BGP tables, input and output policies
• Describe the two levels and two direction of BGP filtering mechanisms

Implementing BGP Policy Changes

• Explain the three ways to implement BGP configuration changes
• Explain the caution when using soft-reconfiguration and hard clear
• Describe memory considerations when using soft-reconfiguration
• List the advantages if using Route Refresh (RFC 2918)
• Implement non-disruptive BGP policy changes using Route Refresh

Manipulating Attributes using Route Maps

• Explain how each attribute is used to influence route selection or traffic flow
• Configure MEDs three ways to introduce inbound traffic
• Implement inbound and outbound traffic flow designs using BGP attributes
• Design BGP policies based on the knowledge gained configuring attributes

Filtering Prefixes

• Configure Access List to filter prefixes one by one
• Explain why AS-Path access-list are used in a BGP network
• List six common AS-Path regular expressions and describe what route update they will filter
• Implement a security design with AS Path access-list
• Configure prefix-list to prevent customers from advertising routes with a mask greater than 26 bits

Transit Autonomous Systems

• Describe how communities are used to simply route filtering
• Explain the RFC-1997 AS:NN community names
• Design community based policies to control propagation of the route updates
• Implement a transit policy design to control route updates to both customers and other ISPs
• Configure route-maps, neighbor statements, set and match command to implement communities

Redundancy

• Explain who controls Inbound and Outbound traffic
• Describe how BGP is not needed to implement multiple links to one or more Service Providers
• List the three common ways to have multiple links to one ISP
• Configure BGP routing for customers with multiple links to one or more Service Providers

MultiHomed to ISPs

• Explain why and when BGP should be used
• Design and configure load sharing for customer's (outbound) traffic and return (inbound) traffic
• Describe the load sharing requirements of both a typical internet customer and typical ISP
• Configure 3 types of multihome designs
• Design and deploy BGP communities for consistent return path selection

BGP Convergence and Route flap Dampening

• Explain why route flap dampening is used
• Describe what happens when a route flaps
• List the operational steps of route flap dampening
• Configure route flap dampening

Scaling IBGP

• Describe IBGP full mesh limitations
• List the guidelines for a table IBGP design
• Explain the operation of BGP route reflectors
• Describe how BGP confederations work
• Implement a route reflector design
• Configure peer groups

Who should attend
The Target Audience for this course is as follows:

• Customers or Resellers who are experienced with Foundry Networks Products
• Network technicians with installation, configuration, and troubleshooting experience with Foundry Products
• Network Administrators responsible for implementing and managing small to large enterprise and ISP networks.
• Network support staff that will act as network device installers and first-line support for a local to global sized business environment.