Network Fundamentals

A DevOps team needs to deploy dozens of small, independent microservices on a single physical server. Each service must start in seconds, share the host operating system kernel, and use minimal memory and disk overhead so the server can run as many instances as possible. Which virtualization approach best meets these requirements?

A user reports slow file transfers between their workstation and a server. On the access switch port connecting the workstation, you run 'show interfaces' and notice the port is administratively up and line protocol is up, but the counters show an increasing number of late collisions and runts. The port is configured for 'speed 100' and 'duplex full'. What is the MOST likely cause of this problem?

A network technician is troubleshooting intermittent connectivity on a GigabitEthernet link between two switches. The 'show interfaces gigabitEthernet0/1' output shows a steadily increasing 'input errors' counter with a large 'CRC' count, but zero 'collisions' and zero 'late collisions'. The interface remains 'up/up' at 1000 Mbps full duplex on both ends. What is the MOST likely cause of these symptoms?

A network engineer is documenting the addresses configured on a router interface. One of the addresses assigned is 2001:0db8:acad:1::10/64. The engineer needs to classify this address type for the network diagram. Which type of IPv6 address is this?

A network technician runs 'ipconfig' on a Windows workstation and sees an IPv6 address of fe80::a1b2:c3d4:e5f6:7890 assigned to the Ethernet adapter, in addition to a global address. The workstation can ping other devices on the same VLAN using this fe80 address but cannot use it to reach a server in a remote subnet. Which statement correctly explains the fe80 address?

A workstation sends a unicast frame to a server on the same VLAN. The Layer 2 switch has just been powered on and its MAC address table is empty. What does the switch do with this frame?

A network administrator has configured five VLANs on an access switch for a growing branch office. Users in different VLANs currently cannot communicate with each other, and the administrator wants to enable communication between VLANs without adding a separate physical router or using multiple router interfaces. Which network component is designed to perform this function most efficiently within the switch fabric?

A data center administrator needs to connect two switches located in adjacent racks, roughly 40 meters apart. The link must support 10 Gbps and minimize transceiver and cabling costs while remaining suitable for this short distance. Which cabling choice best fits these requirements?

A network administrator is designing security for a branch office. The requirement is to deploy a device at the Internet edge that can filter traffic based on Layer 3/4 rules, perform stateful inspection, control traffic by application and user identity, and terminate VPN tunnels for remote workers. Which network component best meets ALL of these requirements?

A network technician is deploying six wireless access points in a warehouse where there are no electrical outlets near the ceiling mounting locations. Each AP requires up to 25.5W of power. The technician wants to power all APs directly through their Ethernet cables from a single access switch. Which switch feature must the technician verify is supported to meet this requirement?

A network engineer is assigning IP addresses to a new internal branch office network that must not use publicly routable addresses. The design calls for a single subnet supporting up to 500 hosts, and the addressing must come from RFC 1918 private space using the most efficient class-based block that fits. Which address block should the engineer choose?

A network engineer must connect two buildings on a campus that are 8 kilometers apart with a single 10 Gbps backbone link. The link must support the full distance without regeneration. Which cabling and transceiver choice should the engineer select?

A company is designing a new data center that hosts many east-west (server-to-server) traffic flows for a virtualized application cluster. The design team wants a topology where every server-facing switch connects to every backbone switch, providing predictable, low-latency connectivity and consistent hop count between any two hosts. Which network topology architecture best meets these requirements?

A network technician is assigning a static IP address to a new server. The server must reside in the 172.16.40.0/22 subnet. Company policy requires that servers use the last usable host address in their subnet. Which IP address should the technician configure on the server?

A software company is deploying an internal application that transfers large installation packages between servers. The developers require that every byte arrives intact and in order, with automatic retransmission of any lost segments and flow control to avoid overwhelming the receiver. Which transport-layer protocol should the application use, and why?

A technician is working at a client site that uses a mix of operating systems. On a macOS laptop and a Linux workstation, the technician needs to display the current IPv4 address, subnet mask, and interface status directly from the terminal. Which command should the technician use on these systems?

A network administrator at a small company connects all 60 devices (workstations, printers, and IP phones) to a single Layer 2 switch using its default configuration. Users report sluggish performance, and a packet capture shows excessive broadcast traffic reaching every device. The administrator wants to logically separate the workstations, printers, and phones to reduce this traffic without adding more physical switches. Which switching concept should be implemented?

A network engineer is documenting the transport protocols used by applications on the corporate network. One application streams real-time voice traffic between IP phones, where minimizing delay is critical and occasional lost packets are acceptable rather than retransmitting them. Which transport protocol best fits this application's requirements?

A network technician is deploying three access points in a small office that all operate in the 2.4 GHz band. Users report intermittent slowdowns caused by co-channel and adjacent-channel interference between the APs. Which set of channel assignments should the technician configure to avoid overlap in the 2.4 GHz band?

A campus network has 60 access points spread across three buildings. The network administrator wants to centrally manage RF settings, push configuration and firmware updates, and enforce security policies without configuring each AP individually. Which network component provides this capability?