Need advice

coffeeking

As some of you might know that I just recently have started a new job. Tasks are being assigned to me one by one, nothing much to do right now. Recently I was given a task to monitor the company's firewalls and create a report on excessive traffic from IPs and inform the appropriate department in the company to reduce the traffic. One of the guys assigned me this task and went over a few things with me, a lot of it flew over my head since I have never done this before and have no hands on experience in this kind of work.

I need learn about IP addresses, network ports, protocols (netbios-ns, ms-sql-m, icmp) and stuff like that. I need to be able to tell what kind of connections are established (P2P and etc.).
Basically I need to learn a lot about networks and stuff.

I need you guy's advice on how to brush up my knowledge on this kind of stuff. What certification study would you guys recommend for this kind of knowledge. Anything other tips along with any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.

qplayed

You could start with Network+, if your work place is a Cisco shop, I would suggest working on the CCNA once your done with N+.. my 2c

coffeeking

qplayed wrote:

You could start with Network+, if your work place is a Cisco shop, I would suggest working on the CCNA once your done with N+.. my 2c

I am already reading a book on safari for CCNA (ICND). Do you think N+ is necessary before I go for CCNA, or let me put it this way: will CCNA give me enough knowledege about what I am trying to learn without having to go through N+?

Yes, My workplace is a Cisco shop.

blargoe

I think you need Net+ or CCENT right away if you need basic stuff like network ports and general TCP/IP knowledge. I personally prefer Net+ since it's generalized but you might pick CCENT since it's a stepping stone to the CCNA.