NRP Topic Details
Details on each topic area are provided below to provide further understanding of expectations for the Network Research Project (NRP). You will select one topic area to conduct the NRP. At a minimum, you should address the details provided for each topic area. However, you are not limited by these additional details. You are encouraged to research and discuss additional aspects under any of these approved topic areas.
- Compare and contrast the characteristics of network topologies, types and technologies.
- Wired Topologies (logical vs physical, star, ring, mesh, and bus)
- Wireless Topologies (mesh, ad hoc, other infrastructure)
- Types (LAN, WLAN, MAN, WAN, CAN, SAN, and PAN)
- Technologies that facilitate the Internet of Things (Z-Wave, Ant+ Bluetooth, NFC, IR, RFID, and 802.11)
- Summarize cloud concepts and their purposes.
- Types of services (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS)
- Cloud delivery models (Private, Public, and Hybrid)
- Connectivity methods
- Security implications / considerations
- Relationships between local and cloud resources
- Explain devices, applications, protocols and services at their appropriate OSI layers.
- Layer 1 (Physical)
- Layer 2 (Data Link)
- Layer 3 (Network)
- Layer 4 (Transport)
- Layer 5 (Session)
- Layer 6 (Presentation)
- Layer 7 (Application)
- Explain the functions of network services.
- DNS service (record types, internal vs external DNS, third-party/cloud hosted DNS, hierarchy, forward vs reverse zone)
- DHCP service (MAC reservations, pools, IP exclusions, scope options, lease time, TTL, DHCP relay)
- NTP
- IPAM
- VoIP
- Simple Network Management Protocol
- File sharing
- WWW
- Printing
- Explain the purposes of virtualization and network storage technologies.
- Virtual Networking Component (Virtual switch, firewall, NIC, router, hypervisor)
- Network storage types (NAS, SAN)
- Connection Type (FCoE, Fibre Channel, iSCSI, InfiniBand)
- Jumbo Frame
- Compare and contrast business continuity and disaster recovery concepts.
- Availability Concepts (Fault tolerance, high availability, load balancing, NIC teaming, port aggregation, clustering)
- Power Management (Battery backups/UPS, power generators, dual power supplies, redundant circuits)
- Recovery (Cold sites, warm sites, hot sites)
- Backups (Full, differential, incremental, snapshots)
- MTTR
- MTBF
- SLA requirements
- Explain common scanning, monitoring and patching processes and summarize their expected outputs.
- Process (log reviewing, port scanning, vulnerability scanning, patch management, reviewing baselines, packet/traffic analysis)
- Event management (notifications, alerts, SIEM)
- SNMP monitors (MIB)
- Metrics (Error rate, utilization, packet drops, bandwidth/throughput)
- Explain authentication and access controls.
- Authorization, authentication, and accounting (RADIUS, TACACS+, Kerberos, Single sign-on, Local authentication, LDAP, Certificates, Auditing and logging)
- Multi-factor authentication (something you know, have, are, do, or somewhere you are)
- Access Control (802.1x, NAC, port security, MAC filtering, captive portal, access control lists)
- Summarize common networking attacks.
- DoS (Reflective, amplified, distributed)
- Social engineering
- Insider threat
- Logic bomb
- Rogue access point
- Evil twin
- War-driving
- Phishing
- Ransomware
- DNS poisoning
- Brute force
- Exploits vs. Vulnerabilities
- Compare and Contrast network policies and best practices.
- Privileged user agreement
- Password policy
- On-boarding/off-boarding procedures
- Licensing restrictions
- International export controls
- Data loss prevention
- Remote access policies
- Incident response policies
- BYOD
- AUP
- NDA
- System life cycle (asset disposal)
- Safety procedures and policies
