Large-Scale Network Design

Large-Scale Network Design LiveLessons: Best Practices for Designing Elegant, Scalable, and Programmable Networks with OSPF, EIGRP, IS-IS, and BGP Routing Protocols
By Russ White, Alvaro Retana
Published Jan 30, 2017 by Cisco Press. Part of the LiveLessons series.

Large Scale Network Design LiveLessons takes you through the concepts behind stable, scalable, elegant network design, including modularity, resilience, layering, and security principles. This livelesson will focus on traditional distributed link state, distance vector, and path vector routing protocols, as well as the basic principles of centralized control planes (such as OpenFlow). A special point will be made of sorting out the relationship between policy and reachability, and where they can best be managed in a large scale network.

This video begins with an examination of basic network design principles, including an examination of modularization, hierarchy, summarization, aggregation, and resilience. More advanced foundational topics are then considered, such as an overview of network complexity, network models, and policy from within the context of the control plane. After this, the series will work through design using each of the distributed control planes, including OSPF, IS-IS, EIGRP, and BGP, on several network topologies to provide practical knowledge of actual deployment in real networks. The following section of this livelesson will consider the tradeoffs around programmable networks, including convergence, stability, and other factors. Finally, advanced topics, such as fast convergence, will be considered in detail, from principle to application in each protocol.

What You Will Learn
• Drivers behind network design considerations(
• Classic network design principles(
• How to define network complexity and understand complexity tradeoffs(
• Link-state design concepts(
• OSPF network design(
• IS-IS network design(
• EIGRP network design(
• BGP network design(
• Network security basics, hardening networks, and protecting hosts(
• Programmable network design

This video is targeted at a broad range of network engineers, including those who are just starting in the networking industry to seasoned professionals who would like to expand their knowledge from a narrow range of technologies to a broader range of technologies and the principles behind solid design. This video will be of particular interest to those who are studying for the Cisco Certified Design Expert and the Cisco Certified Architect certifications.