If you’re an aspiring IT professional trying to enhance your career prospects in the IT networking field, facing your next interview might be a daunting task.
Here is a list of 8 most important networking interview questions that might be asked as you face your next interview.
1. Draw a network topography you worked on before and explain the design?
Creating network blueprints is among the primary duties of a network engineer. As a networking candidate, you should be able to quickly sketch out a well-illustrated design and explain the thought process behind that topography.
For e.g.: You can create a network topography you implemented before in a mid-size organisation that needed to keep security and availability at the forefront of the design.
2. What is your understanding of configuration management?
With the above question on configuration, the interviewer wants to know your experience and expertise of the structure of the networking. Here you need to display your technical ability and domain experience along with your knowledge of protocols & governance. Your task here is to convince the interviewer about your ability to define, deploy, and implement the system configuration management policy effectively.
3. As a network engineer, what safeguards do you put in a network design to minimize data loss?
To be able to articulate your answer well, you need to have the experience to handle such situations and a detailed understanding of the data loss. Explain that since data loss can cause systems to completely stop, a network engineer should always be prepared for this risk. Among the safeguards, talk about building robust disaster recovery resources into the network plan such as distributed network storage locations and scheduled backups at a regular interval
4. Talk about the difference between wired and Wireless LAN?
Keep your answer simple and straightforward until asked to explain further. You need to explain how wired LAN uses wired ethernet devices such as router, hub, and switch whereas wireless LAN uses wireless devices such as WLAN router, MiFi router etc.
5. Explain the advantages of subnetting?
This question is asked to assess both your technical ability to deploy network as well as your understanding of the network model. While talking about the benefits of subnetting you need to explain that it is an excellent way to enhance network security. Additionally, subnetting also assists in reducing the network traffic as well as the size of the routing tables by isolating it from the rest of the network.
6. Walk us through the troubleshooting process in case you aren’t getting the expected performance out of your network configuration.
This question is asked to see your first-hand approach towards a complex problem. There could be many ways to approach the issue, but the interviewer is trying to see abilities such as analytical thinking, solid thought process, and your willingness to ask for help if needed.
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7. Explain the difference between a server and a dedicated server.
Going for an interview with prior experience requires you to be well prepared with your technical concepts. A good answer to this question would be an explanation of how the dedicated server is deployed to provide a specific service, unlike the usual server. For example, if a server is providing a particular service only such as web service, it is known as a dedicated server.
8. Is there any difference between router and gateway?
Yes, there is a difference between the two. Although both router and gateway work at the networking layer of OSI stack, router interfaces the same set of protocols whereas gateway interfaces two different set of protocols.
Other important networking interview questions
Apart from the above list, here are some of the other essential questions that you can expect at your networking interview:
a. What is the difference between TCPIP stack and the OSI stack?
b. What is Ethernet Address and IP address?
c. Explain the types of network you have worked with before?
d. How will you scale networks to accommodate an organization’s changing needs?
e. Tell us about the OSI Reference Model?
f. What is the largest size network you have ever engineered?
g. Do you have experience of coordinating with other teams and stakeholders while deploying network resources?
h. What is a firewall? Explain the difference between a hardware firewall and a software firewall?
i. What are the differences between the Internet, Intranet and Extranet?
j. Explain the functions of RARP and ARP?
One essential skill required in a candidate looking to make an accomplished career in computer networking is the ability to clearly explain and exchange technical information.
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