Today's rapidly changing technology offers increasingly complex challenges to the network administrator, MIS director and others who are responsible for the overall health of the network. This Network Maintenance and Troubleshooting Guide picks up where other network manuals and texts leave off. It addresses the areas of how to anticipate and prevent problems, how to solve problems, how to operate a healthy network and how to troubleshoot. Network Maintenance and Troubleshooting Guide also provides basic technical and troubleshooting information about cable testing, Ethernet and Token Ring networks and additional information about Novell's IPX® protocol and TCP/IP. Examples are shown as either diagrams and tables, or screen captures from Fluke instruments. Network professionals will appreciate the guide's "real world" orientation toward solving network crises quickly, by guiding readers to solutions for restoration of end to end data delivery as quickly as possible. The network novice will learn from the simplified descriptions about networking technology in the Appendices.

Neal Allen is a Product Manager for the LANMeter Series handheld network analyzers for Fluke Corporation in Everett, Washington. His responsibilities in that position are "anything the engineers don't do," including: market research, writing manuals and literature, helping to specify and BETA-test new products and product features, attending and delivering papers at trade shows, and providing both training and sales support world-wide. Allen has been involved in the design, installation and troubleshooting of networks for ten years. Although his focus has been primarily OSI Layer 3 and below, he has designed and taught a number of short seminars and a three-quarter introductory networking course at local community colleges. Allen has been a member of the Interop trade show NOC (Network Operations Center) Team since 1993, and in addition to other responsibilities, is responsible for troubleshooting show floor problems at the Las Vegas and Atlanta Interop trade shows. Allen was also chosen to help support and troubleshoot the network for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. He participates in the local community college system as a member of program advisory boards in electronics, computer service, and networking technologies, as well as the Tech-Prep program.

Introduction.

1. Preventing Problems.

2. Solving Problems.

3. Forming a Strategy.

Appendix A: Errors.

Appendix B: Operation.

Appendix C: Troubleshooting.

Appendix D: TCP/IP.

Appendix E: IPX (Novell).

Appendix F: Cable Testing.

Appendix G: Switches.

Appendix H: Glossary.