Section one: Moving from Competence to Excellence

What does competence look like in this area? 

 A solid understanding and practical experience in configuring, managing and troubleshooting data transfer operations between different networks. A learner / apprentice should be able to:

• understand the OSI Model and TCP/IP Stack
• understand the operations of data-link, network and transport protocols, IPv4 and IPv6 addressing
• initialise and configure network (layer 2 and 3) equipment’s (switches and routers) at access, core and aggregation levels
• plan and implement VLAN segmentation
• configure internal and external routing protocols ensuring connectivity
• implement basic security configurations in control and data plane for LANs and WANs including VPN connections for remote locations
• appropriately use network discovery and traffic analysis tools to identify network performance, detect issues and perform troubleshooting.

What does excellence look like in this area?  

A learner / apprentice should be able to:

• optimise the network by applying the OSI, TCP/IP in data-link, network and transport layers developing operational efficiency and security across different scenarios
• establish a secured, redundant, load balanced enterprise connectivity with advanced routing and switching protocols ensuring fault tolerance and uninterrupted service
• implement dynamic network segmentation within VLANs and advanced VPN technologies connecting multiple remote branches
• optimise resources and manage network using controller-based software defined networking and network function virtualisation techniques to establish a robust and adaptive network.

Considering today’s current scenario, excellence must reflect not only mastering the current networking technologies, but also the ability to anticipate network challenges and optimise network security, functionality and efficiency across complex enterprise network environments.

What does competence look like in this area?

A solid understanding and practical experience in system administration with the ability to manage essential enterprise networks services and infrastructure.  A learner / apprentice should be able to:

• understand application protocols and their role in a client-server application interaction
• install and maintain core enterprise directory services supporting identity management and access control
• manage network time services, domain name services, dynamic host configuration protocol, network address translation to effectively allocate resources
• set up remote network access, network sharing, web hosting and monitoring services to monitor the infrastructure and identify potential issues for troubleshooting
• implement authentication and authorisation controls and backup procedures
• configure RAID for resilient data storage, setup and manage windows deployment services, group policies and directory services.

What does excellence look like in this area?  

A learner / apprentice should be able to:

• manage complex dependencies among various systems, services and applications ensuring uninterrupted service delivery
• use wide ranges of OS, justifying selection, integration and optimisation of various applications within enterprise network
• establish secured network administration ensuring a scalable network design with high availability and high performance
• implement enterprise level DNS, advanced DHCP configurations, dynamic and secured NAT services
• design secure infrastructure implementing advanced AAA strategies
• develop an automated, scalable backup system reducing downtime and ensuring redundancy
• create customised reporting, alert systems utilising viable monitoring systems
• configure sophisticated customised deployment strategies
• have a forward-thinking approach while designing, configuring and implementing a network administration plan to ensure resilience, reliability, adaptability cured, efficient and future-ready infrastructure.