Networking Foundations (NOC / Network Technician)

Real portfolio pieces built during the course, not a certificate for its own sake. Each one is work you can show.

• Network diagramA labelled diagram of one site: circuit and reference, router and switches with management addresses, the trunk and its VLANs, each VLAN with its purpose, subnet and gateway, plus a date, a version and a note of what it deliberately excludes.
• Cable and port auditOne row per switch port covering patch panel, wall port, connected device, VLAN, negotiated speed and duplex, status, date verified and notes, including the empty ports, with every disagreement against the existing records recorded as a finding.
• Subnetting worksheetA complete address plan for a site carved from a single allocated block: requirements converted to prefixes, allocated largest first, with network, mask, first and last host, broadcast, gateway and usable count for every subnet, plus the free space left over.
• Incident ticket from a monitoring alertOne fault written up in full: the source alert, the symptom as observed, a timestamped timeline, a table of tests with what each one eliminated, the cause stated as a mechanism, the resolution, the validation, and what remains outstanding.
• Change record with backout planA reviewable change: reason, exact scope, risk in both the good and the bad case, pre-checks, a method somebody else could follow, validation agreed before the work, an observable backout trigger with a point of no return, and an honest closure.
• Capacity reportOne link per row, answered with busy period figures rather than a monthly average: mean, ninety fifth percentile and peak against the rated speed, output discards recorded beside input errors, what that pair says about who owns the fault and what it rules out, and the cheaper explanation ruled out before any money is recommended. Written so somebody outside the team can approve or refuse it on its merits.