This artifact represents my development in enterprise networking and network troubleshooting. As part of my networking background and CCNP Enterprise preparation, I practiced using common troubleshooting commands to verify connectivity, routing behavior, interface status, VLANs, OSPF neighbors, BGP sessions, and network reachability. These commands are important in cybersecurity because network defenders need to understand traffic flow, segmentation, routing, and where communication may be failing.

Common Troubleshooting Commands:

• ping — tests basic reachability between devices
• traceroute — shows the path traffic takes through the network
• show ip interface brief — quickly checks interface status and IP addressing
• show interfaces — checks interface errors, drops, speed, duplex, and operational status
• show running-config — reviews the active device configuration
• show ip route — displays the routing table
• show vlan brief — verifies VLANs and assigned switchports
• show mac address-table — checks learned MAC addresses on switchports
• show arp — maps IP addresses to MAC addresses
• show cdp neighbors — identifies directly connected Cisco devices
• show lldp neighbors — identifies directly connected network devices using LLDP
• show ip ospf neighbor — verifies OSPF neighbor relationships
• show ip ospf database — reviews OSPF link-state information
• show ip bgp summary — checks BGP neighbor status
• show access-lists — reviews ACL entries and hit counts

Skills Demonstrated:
Network troubleshooting, routing and switching, OSPF, BGP, VLANs, interface verification, traffic flow analysis, infrastructure security, documentation, and technical problem solving.

Reflection:
Practicing network troubleshooting commands helped me better understand how enterprise networks operate and how to identify problems quickly. These skills connect directly to cybersecurity because security depends on knowing how systems communicate, how traffic is routed, and how network segmentation is enforced. Strong networking knowledge supports my goal of growing in network security, automation, and enterprise infrastructure defense.