Overview
Taking into consideration the pre-requisites, this course has been developed to meet the objectives of the CompTIA Convergence+ Certification Exam CT0-101. Certification is a worthwhile goal, however this is not an exam cram study course that guarantees that you will pass the test.
The course provides an excellent grounding in convergence technologies and issues. The course covers all 6 areas included in the Convergence+ exam objectives (although some are covered briefly, as they are pre-requisites), ensuring that students have a firm grounding in telephony principles and voice systems before considering the encoding of voice to form IP data, and the network requirements that this demands. The course then provides a more detailed analysis of encoding techniques and protocols and multi-media over IP applications.

The course then concentrates on the technologies and issues associated with telephony over IP including CTI, call routing and handling, associated protocols such as H.323 and SIP before detailing the hardware involved in converged applications, such as media servers and gateways, PBXs, CSU/DSUs, etc.

The last section of the course explores the management of converged networks, protocols and applications. This considers troubleshooting tools and techniques, common problems, hardware configuration and QoS. Finally, security issues are studied.

Audience
This condensed course is designed for engineers that are experienced in the area of LAN and WAN data networking and wish to gain a thorough understanding of the features, technologies and issues of utilising these networks to support converged data and multimedia applications.Anyone who wishes to gain a thorough grounding in convergence technologies, protocols, applications and the general marketplace.
Anyone wishing to properly prepare themselves to take the CompTIA Convergence+ Certification Exam CT0-101.

Pre-requisites
Students attending this 3 day condensed course must have existing experience of the following CompTIA Convergence+ exam objectives:

2.0 Network Engineering
2.3 Networking technologies
·     Switches: Technologies and typical features
·     Physical and Logical Port settings: TCP/UDP
·     Network Classification and Topologies
·     Routing: Basic operation
·     Protocols: TCP/IP stack
·     Transmission Media: Cable types and use

3.0 Applications
3.1 Messaging Applications
·     Voice mail, SMS, etc : features
3.2 Collaboration applications
·     Voice and video conferencing, etc : features

4.0 Hardware and Architecture
4.1 Layers of the OSI model
·     Features of each layer
4.2 Network Models
·     Core / edge / branch models: basic characteristics
4.3 Hardware Components as used in Converged Networks
·     Routers: features and functionality
·     Switches: features; managed vs. unmanaged

5.0 Management
5.3 Network performance monitoring tools
·     LAN monitoring tools: basic use of SNMP, RMON, ping, pathping, Tracert
·     Data and protocol analyzers: basic use of products such as Sniffer, Ethereal, Wireshark
5.4 Administration tasks and procedures
·     Log files: use of
·     Software management: image and configuration files

Objectives
- Demonstrate application of traffic engineering concepts, quality of service (QoS) and network performance
- Describe fundamentals of voice systems including dialling plans and identification of network endpoints
- Describe networking technologies used in a converged network including the OSI model layers and network models
- Identify methods of encoding, decoding, and compression for rich media transmission
- Identify different types of messaging, collaboration, contact centre, and mobility applications
- Identify benefits of using different video and audio standards and the impact on the performance on the network
- Identify the functions of hardware components as used on a converged network
- Identify common symptoms and problems on a converged network
- Describe and use tools and commands to monitor network performance including proper administration procedures
- Explain concepts and components of security design and how they affect the converged network

Follow-on Courses
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