We live in an exciting, yet challenging period in history. Today, our internet-based ecosystem demands that business networks are available nearly 100 percent of the time. Enterprise networks must be able to adjust to changing traffic demands and maintain constant response times. In addition, they have to be agile enough to respond to unexpected security incidents.

In today's networked environments, administrators face numerous challenges to keep the network up and operational. Effective packet analysis begins by understanding the network architecture. In order to determine where to tap in to identify trouble spots, it's important to recognize the way that different media and devices influence network traffic. And to that end, we will begin our discussion by learning the various types of networks.