For courses in Networking.This book provides connectivity solutions, delivering both an understanding of technology fundamentals and their practical applications. Written for beginning to intermediate networking students, this book will give readers a framework to assess the requirements and problems of their particular environment, and the information and know-how to build the optimal network for that environment. Understanding the Network addresses the student in practical terminology, and describes the most essential information and tools required to build high-availability networks in a step-by-step implementation format. The content builds progressively toward a summary of the essential concepts needed to put together a wide-area network.