An INEX programme of sharing networking clue and professional training for members.
Each year INEX organises a series of network engineering training and development presentations, courses and workshops under the umbrella name of EOLAS. The EOLAS – Exchange Of Learning And Skills Programme – is aimed at those already in the industry who wish to enhance their skills and hopefully help to encourage new recruits to this interesting area of the internet.
- Practical introduction to IPv6 (including ICMPv6).
- Review of PPPoE (and briefly DHCP) as the standard IPv4 access technology and what provisioning IPv6 over these looks like.
- CPEs and IPv6 (including the implications for NAT and firewalling)
- IPv4 vs IPv6 network stack on the LAN-side (DHCP vs IPv6 RA, privacy extensions)
- What should customers experience, and why, when IPv6 is enabled?
- Tips, useful tools, common issues and suggestions for experimenting with IPv6.
Instructors: Barry O’Donovan and Denis Nolan from the INEX’s operations team, will deliver this workshop. Having rolled out and managed IPv6 across INEX and many other networks including their home networks, they have excellent knowledge and experience of the new challenges that emerge and how these can be resolved efficiently.
Target Audience: Network engineers in the support chain who currently, or will shortly need to, handle IPv6-related queries. While no prior experience or knowledge of IPv6 is required, you should be experienced with dealing with standard customer support issues, including DHCP or PPPoE connection issues, DHCP and NAT on the LAN side of customer CPE devices, and diagnosing DNS problems. A laptop with Wireshark would be useful for participating in some demonstrations.
Registration: If you are interested in attending this training please email eolas@inex.ie
2nd April 2025: Demystifying the Internet with INEX and Max Stucchi
Have you ever wondered how the internet works behind the scenes? From the cables under the sea to the protocols that bring your digital experience to life? In our newest member training course “Demystifying the Internet with INEX and Max Stucchi” we are going to answer questions just like that.
With over 20 years of experience in the world of the internet, Max will help you unlock the mysteries of how it all comes together. He will break it down in simple terms, from the physical cables to the technology that connects us all.
A big shoutout to INEX members HEAnet for so generously allowing us to host this course in their Dublin office.
When: 2nd of April 2025 from 12:30 to 17:00hrs (Irish Time) – A light lunch will be served at 12:30 before the course starts.
Where: HEAnet Offices: 3rd Floor, North Dock 2 93/94 North Wall Quay, Dublin D01 V8Y6, Ireland
Outline:
- The building blocks of the Internet:
– IP Addresses and the RIR System;
– DNS;
– Transit providers, submarine cables; - The economics of the Internet: How packets transit the Internet and generate money;
- The role of IXPs on the Internet
- Transit and Peering;
- A new concept: CDNs and OTTs;
- A brief introduction to route servers and peering policies;
- The impact of subsea cable cuts and DDoS attacks;
- Wrap-up;
- Q&A
Registration: This course is fully booked. If you want to join the waiting list please email eolas@inex.ie
3rd April 2025: DNSSEC and Using OSPF as an IGP
The course will be delivered by Massimiliano Stucchi who has over 20 years’ experience working for organisations such as RIPE NCC and the Internet Society. He is a very experienced trainer and currently runs his own training company. Max has a specific love for FreeBSD and OpenBSD, which he’s been using for around 20 years now. His interest also cover BGP, Routing Security, DNS and IPv6 to name a few.
A big shoutout to INEX member HEAnet for so generously allowing us to host this course in their Dublin office. We really appreciate the support.
When: 3rd of April 2025 from 9:30 until 17:00 hrs Dublin time. A light lunch will be provided for participants.
Where: HEAnet Offices: 3rd Floor, North Dock 2 93/94 North Wall Quay, Dublin D01 V8Y6, Ireland
Outline:
DNSSEC
– A brief refresher on DNS
– A very brief introduction to Cryptography
– The big picture of DNSSEC
– New Resource records for DNSSEC
– Key Rollovers
– DANE
– Troubleshooting and new concepts (DELEG)
– Wrap-up
– Q&A
Using OSPF as an IGP
– What is an IGP
– Link-state protocols
– Difference between IGP and EGP
– Path-Vector protocols compared to Link-State protocols
– What is an IGP supposed to do in a medium to large network
– Best Current Operational Practices for building a network with IGP
and EGP
– Introduction to OSPF
– IPv6 in OSPF
– OSPFv3
Registration: This course is fully booked. If you want to join the waiting list please email eolas@inex.ie .
10th and 11th of December – EOLAS 5 – IPv6 and BGP security with RIPE NCC. Radisson Blu Royal Hotel in Dublin city Centre.
We are delighted to announce that we have partnered with RIPE NCC to offer a double EOLAS training to end the year.
You can attend one or both days, simply let us know when you are registering.
Day 1 – IPv6 Security – On day one you will get an overview of the most relevant IPv6 security topics. The participant will gain insight into industry best practices and gain a high-level understanding of the most pressing IPv6 security concerns today. The course includes theory and hands-on exercises. Please note that you will be expected to have an advanced level of knowledge of the IPv6 Protocol and its operations.
Day 2 -BGP Routing Security – The trainers will cover different aspects of the security of BGP protocol. The participant will gain insight and a high-level understanding of the need for security in BGP, the main threats it faces and the main security measures that can be applied nowadays. Some future developments on the topic will also be covered. The course includes theory and hands-on exercises. To attend this course you need a good knowledge of TCP/IP and IP routing, experience with routing protocols (IGPs but mostly BGP), and an understanding of the different BGP routing relationships (Peer, Provider, IXP peering, Customer).
Your trainers:
Riccardo Stagni: https://www.ripe.net/about-us/press-centre/publications/speakers/riccardo-stagni/
Ondřej Caletka: https://www.ripe.net/about-us/press-centre/publications/speakers/ondrej-caletka/
12/09/2024 – LibreNMS – We are delighted to have Neil Lathwood from PTX Technologies and LibreNMS expert delivering this two hour in person workshop. If you are interested and would like to attend please email eolas@inex.ie as spaces are limited.
In this session we’ll be looking to cover a wide range of its features and show you how to use them. Some of the core items we will run through will be Device Groups, Alert rules, Templates and Transports along with creating dashboards and some of the additional features available such as Oxidized. I’ll be happy to run through any bespoke requests for how to use certain features within the software.
Location: Camden Court Hotel Dublin
26/09/2024 – The INEX guide to the NIS2 galaxy – We are pleased to announce an upcoming course and information sharing session focused on NIS 2 and its implementation in Ireland, some insights to how ISO 27001 will provide alignment with the requirements under this regulation and why and how INEX approached certification under this standard. This will be delivered by Ian (Travers of BH Consulting), Nick, Barry and Eileen.
Time – 10:30am to 1pm (with a small break half way)
Location – Zoom
Course Outline
Background and current status
- Update on NIS 2 and its objectives
- Current status and future dates for NIS 2 implementation in Ireland
- Demonstrating how ISO27001 aligns organisations with NIS 2 requirements
INEX Approach
- Business and technical perspectives on why we choose to pursue ISO 27001 certification
- Insights from Nick and Barry on the impact of working to achieve alignment (workload, type of work, complexity) from a network management perspective
- Benefits observed from running the network under this standard
Practical Guidance
- Breakdown of possible ways to approach ISO27001 implementation
- Value of the NIS2 framework for executive Management in the organisation and explicit benefits to a Board for having this in place
Q&A Session
This course is open to all members but may be of particular interest to business managers, network managers and all who may be impacted by NIS 2 or who may be interested to hear first-hand how and why INEX delivered its ISO 27001 project and achieved certification.
Please confirm your attendance by emailing eolas@inex.ie
01/05/2024 – Machine Learning and Generative AI – Online Webinar
Agenda:
1) How the Brain Works.
2) How Machines are starting to Emulate the Brain.
3) How Data and Machine Learning replaces Programming.
4) Anatomy of a Large Language Model.
5) Let build our own Chatbot.
About the trainer: Jerry Sweeney is the founder and Managing Director, CloudCIX Limited, member of the INEX Board of Directors and an AI enthusiast amongst other things. You can learn more about Jerry via his LinkedIn profile.
29/02/2024 – Eolas 1 Webinar –How to navigate social media for business benefit
Engaging online with customers, partners and the wider engineering community has become crucial for businesses, especially during outages or network issues like many have experienced in recent storms. Whether you are promoting events, acquiring new customers or maintaining updates to customers during outages, knowing who and how to engage with social media is crucial.
We invite you to pass details of this course onto the relevant person in your organisation who may be looking at X/Twitter: should we stay or should we go? Mastodon, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads, Discord and more. Damien will also explain how ChatGPT can help you with your scheduling and analysis tasks.
As part of this training event, we are looking forward to meeting new people from your teams and welcoming them to the INEX Community.
This webinar is free to members but we do require you to register via eolas@inex.ie.
This detailed and practical workshop will go through a number of current social networks and show you how they all have uses and how to use them effectively. It will show you how to create content that works and that routes around the restrictive algorithms that don’t like
links. You’ll also learn how to analyse your reach and engagement and those of your competitors. As a result you will be able to expand and enrich your network in an efficient way.
There will be time for Q+As throughout the workshop too.
About our trainer for the day:
Damien Mulley is a trainer covering marketing and communications for over 20 years. From hanging out on usenet, IRC and Twitter, Damien knows what works and can show you how you can use social networks to help your organisation instead of pushing content into a void that gets no return on your efforts.
For more about Damien you can check his LinkedIn profile here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmulley/
RIPE NCC L&D Portfolio –
The RIPE NCC is the Regional Internet Registry for Europe, Middle East and parts of Central Asia. Here we have compiled a selection of their L&D resources that you may find useful to further develop your career.
Getting the Most of Your INEX Membership (December 2023) – Full presentation linked to the title. In this webinar, Barry O’Donovan from the INEX operations team will bring members on a tour of the essential internet infrastructure, services and tools available to our members through their INEX membership and connection to our peering LANs. This webinar will serve as an excellent technical introduction to INEX for our new members and a useful refresher for long-term members. Topics will include:- Overview on the three INEX peering LANs, why they exist and what the differences are.
– Quick review of INEX’s route collectors and route servers.
– A tour of IXP Manager and its essential features including:
* Identifying any filtered prefixes by the route servers.
* Route server filtering UI tool.
* Graphing information available to members.
* Identifying members for bilateral peering sessions.
* Document store, member details, cross connects, …
– INEX’s AS112 service.
– DNS root and tld services available over INEX and how to use them.
– Third party tools including PeeringDB
Deploying RPKI Webinar (May 2023) – Two-hour Webinar delivered by RIPE NCC trainers. The webinar covered RPKI framework in detail, how RPKI helps with routing security and explained all the steps you need to know to implement RPKI in your network. It includeed several demos to reinforce theory with practice and shows RPKI implementation end-to-end.
Introduction to Routing, Peering and BGP (2022 and 2023) –
This training course has been developed and fine-tuned over a number of years and is aimed at anyone who wishes to learn the principles of Service Provider networks: Internet Peering, Transit, and how to understand and create a BGP configuration and routing policy.
The workshop was delivered by Rob Lister, a senior member of the LONAP engineering team with over 20 years networking experience in Internet Exchange and peering networks. The course is structured to enable significant one to one engagement with those attending
What was covered:
- Internet: Peering and Transit
- Routing technology overview
- 7 Layer OSI model and IP
- Basics of IP subnetting: CIDR, IPv4 and IPv6 addressing
- Using the command line (CLI)
- Configuring an IGP, iBGP
- Configuring BGP for peering and transit
- Route servers
- IRRDB and RPKI
- Routing and peering policy
- MANRS
- Tools: INEX IXP Manager Portal, PeeringDB and others.
MANRS – Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (March 2023) –MANRS is a global initiative, supported by the Internet Society, that provides crucial fixes to reduce the most common routing threats. MANRS offers specific actions via four programs for Network Operators, Internet Exchange Points, CDN and Cloud Providers, and Equipment Vendors. We are proud to say that INEX was a founder member of MANRS IXP program.This training was delivered by Massimiliano Stucchi
Introduction to IPv6 Webinar (April 2022). You can access a recording of the full Webinar here:Part 1: https://ripencc.adobeconnect.com/p57hb6e42ugv/Part 2: https://ripencc.adobeconnect.com/p5nwlq87j6f4/
BGP Operation and Security Training Workshop (Sept 2022) – We partnered with our colleagues at RIPE NCC to deliver this two day in person workshop.
Fibre and Transceivers workshop (Dec 2022) – Technico and Flexoptix delivered this workshop to INEX members. Some of the content that was covered on the day: Technico presented on fibre health and safety, fibre theory, connector inspection and insertion loss testing. Flexoptix spoke about transceivers: history, what they are, and how they work.