Stay On Learn And Practice
As with the 8 steps to successful troubleshooting you’re learn already, do not assume that a short course and a book or two will make you into the networking equivalent of Sherlock Holmes. Take the time to learn one or two aspects of networking very well before seeking the next topic. Feel free to ask for help or guidance with everything else in the mean time. This approach will help you avoid making many of the common blunders.
The first suggested step in troubleshooting is to gather information. If you do not know what normal operation is like, and you do not know the technology used, and then it is difficult to gather information and symptoms about the current failure effectively.
Follow up on topics of interest from the first subject(s) of study, so that your knowledge expands from a central point. I hope that you will be working up the OSI Model as you progress. A significant number of senior networking specialists either have forgotten or never knew the basic operation of many elements of the network. Technology is changing very fast in this industry, and they have usually chosen to focus on the higher-layer aspects to the exclusion of developments in the lower layers.
This causes them to make incorrect assumptions about some symptoms, and delays problem resolution accordingly. Since these people are often in positions where network architecture decisions are made a number of expensive upgrades have been purchased unnecessarily. Nobody knows it all, so ask for help when you are unsure. Consult multiple sources when the answer sounds too good to be true, or is questionable.
Similarly, each course or book offers insightful knowledge and experience in specific networking topics, but sometimes goes on to address topics that would be better left to other subject matter experts. One of the indications that you understand a topic or concept well enough is when you can identify the point where that happens, if it does
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