Advanced OSPF, BGP, Multicast PIM, and VXLAN Configuration and Analysis
2-Day Instructor-Led Hands-On Lab Class
Available in either Web-Based Delivery or On-Site Delivery
Minimum 10 students – Maximum 16 students
What Students are Saying About this Class:
- “[Instructor] covered the information incredibly well and all of it was applicable to my job. I couldn’t be happier with this course.”
- “Excellent Course – Especially for review of advanced routing protocols (OSPF, BGP). The lectures were very detailed with great explanations- The hands on labs and instructor lead lab reviews were very educational. Thanks you for this learning opportunity”
- “Andy Walding was an excellent instructor. I really appreciated Andy sharing his customer experiences during the class. the lab exercises were very helpful and easy to follow. Great class!”
- “Labs were well planned and very easy to follow.”
Course Description
Modern networks increasingly depend on advanced Layer 3 technologies to provide scalable routing, resilient connectivity, multicast services, and overlay networking.
CSI-HO-028 – Hands-On Advanced L3 Routing with BGP and OSPF is a focused two-day advanced course designed for technicians and engineers who already understand fundamental TCP/IP networking and want to develop deeper hands-on skills with:
- OSPF
- BGP
- IP Multicast using PIM
- VXLAN
The course builds from advanced routing fundamentals into protocol operation, route selection, route control, multicast routing, and VXLAN.
Instructor-led explanation is reinforced with extensive hands-on exercises using Cisco routers and Cisco IOS. Students configure protocols, examine operational output, observe routing behavior, analyze protocol processes, and troubleshoot the resulting network.
The emphasis is not simply on learning configuration commands.
Students learn to understand:
- How does the protocol work?
- What information is being exchanged?
- Why did the router select this path?
- How can routing information be controlled?
- How do multicast and VXLAN build upon the Layer 3 foundation?
Building Advanced Layer 3 Skills
Many networking professionals develop strong Layer 2 switching skills before moving deeper into Layer 3 routing.
This course helps make that transition.
Students build upon existing Ethernet, IPv4, subnetting, and routing knowledge and progress into more advanced control-plane concepts.
The learning progression includes:
OSPF – Understand neighbor relationships, protocol operation, areas, and routing behavior.
BGP – Explore neighbor relationships, eBGP, iBGP, path selection, AS_PATH behavior, route reflectors, confederations, aggregation, and route control.
Multicast – Understand Layer 3 multicast routing and Protocol Independent Multicast.
VXLAN – See how advanced Layer 3 networking supports modern overlay architectures.
The result is a broader understanding of how routing technologies work together in modern network designs.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Explain advanced Layer 3 routing concepts.
- Configure and verify OSPF.
- Analyze OSPF protocol operation.
- Understand OSPF neighbor and adjacency behavior.
- Explain and configure OSPF areas.
- Configure and verify BGP neighbor relationships.
- Explain the difference between eBGP and iBGP.
- Configure eBGP multihop.
- Analyze BGP protocol operation.
- Explain BGP path-selection concepts.
- Understand and manipulate AS_PATH behavior.
- Explain the purpose and operation of BGP route reflectors.
- Explain BGP confederations.
- Configure and analyze BGP prefix aggregation.
- Apply BGP route-control techniques.
- Explain the fundamentals of IP multicast routing.
- Configure and verify PIM-based multicast operation.
- Explain the purpose of VXLAN.
- Understand how VXLAN relates to modern Layer 2 and Layer 3 network architectures.
- Configure and observe fundamental VXLAN operation.
- Use router operational commands to verify protocol behavior.
- Apply hands-on analysis and troubleshooting techniques to advanced Layer 3 networks.
The emphasis throughout the course is on connecting protocol theory with actual network behavior.
Why Advanced Routing Skills Matter
As networks grow, basic routing knowledge is no longer enough.
Engineers need to understand not only whether a route exists, but:
- How the route was learned
- Why it was selected
- Which protocol advertised it
- How routing policy affects it
- How routing information is propagated
- How failures affect convergence
- How routing scale can be managed
- How multicast traffic is forwarded
- How overlay technologies rely on the underlying Layer 3 network
OSPF, BGP, multicast, and VXLAN each solve different networking problems.
Understanding how they work individually—and how they relate to one another—is essential for designing and supporting advanced network environments.
Audience
This course is designed for technical professionals who already understand fundamental networking and need advanced Layer 3 routing skills.
Ideal participants include:
- Network Engineers
- Service Provider Engineers
- Data Center Engineers
- Broadband Network Engineers
- Network Operations Center personnel
- Network Administrators
- Network Design Engineers
- Network Support Engineers
- Systems Engineers
- Development and Test Engineers
- Network Management personnel
- Technical Sales Engineers
- Technical Marketing personnel
- Individuals preparing for advanced networking certifications
The course is particularly valuable for professionals moving from primarily Layer 2 responsibilities into more advanced Layer 3 routing and network design work.
Course Prerequisites
This is an advanced networking course.
Students should already have a solid understanding of:
- Ethernet
- IPv4 addressing
- IPv4 subnetting
- TCP/IP fundamentals
- Routing tables
- Basic routing concepts
- Cisco router configuration
- Cisco IOS command-line operation
Completion of a hands-on introductory TCP/IP and router configuration course, such as CellStream’s Hands-On TCP/IPv4 Fundamentals training, is strongly recommended.
Because the course moves quickly into OSPF, BGP, multicast, and VXLAN, students should be comfortable configuring and examining routers before attending.
Course Materials
Students receive:
- Course Student Guide
- Hands-On Lab Guide
- Access to the CellStream router lab environment
- OSPF configuration and analysis exercises
- BGP configuration and analysis exercises
- BGP route-control exercises
- Multicast PIM exercises
- VXLAN labs and demonstrations
- Additional routing reference material
The Hands-On Approach
Advanced routing is best learned by observing the protocols in operation.
Throughout the course, students work directly with routing configurations and protocol behavior.
They establish adjacencies and neighbor relationships, examine routing tables, analyze path selection, manipulate routing information, configure multicast, and observe VXLAN operation.
Course Outline:
The course outline is as follows:
- Section 1: Course Introduction/Logistics
- Section 2: OSPF Fundamentals Concepts
- LAB: OSPF Configuration Lab
- Section 3: OSPF Protocol Format and Process
- LAB: OSPF Fundamentals Lab
- Section 4: OSPF Area Routing
- LAB: OSPF Areas Experiment
- Section 5: BGP Fundamental Concepts
- LAB: Simple BGP Neighbor Experiment
- LAB: eBGP Multihop Experiment
- Section 6: BGP Protocol Format and Process
- LAB: BGP Protocol Analysis Lab
- Section 7: BGP Path Selection for External/Internal Networks
- LAB: eBGP and iBGP Routing Experiment
- LAB: AS_PATH Experiment
- Section 8: BGP Route Reflectors and Confederations
- LAB: BGP Route Reflector Experiment
- LAB: BGP Confederations Experiment
- Section 9: BGP Prefix Aggregation and Control
- LAB: BGP Prefix and Aggregation & Control Lab
- Section 10: L3 Multicast Routing with PIM
- LAB: L3 Multicast Routing with PIM Experiment
- Section 11: VxLAN
- LAB/DEMO: VxLAN Experiment #1
- LAB/DEMO: VxLAN Experiment #2
- LAB/DEMO: VxLAN Experiment #3
From OSPF to BGP to VXLAN
The progression of this course is particularly useful because each subject builds upon the Layer 3 foundation.
- OSPF provides an understanding of scalable interior routing.
- BGP expands that perspective into policy-based routing, external routing, path selection, route reflection, confederations, aggregation, and control.
- PIM introduces multicast forwarding and the different requirements of one-to-many traffic.
- VXLAN demonstrates how modern overlay networking depends upon a well-designed underlying IP network.
Together, these subjects help students understand why advanced Layer 3 knowledge is increasingly important in service-provider, data-center, enterprise, and cloud-oriented network designs.
Why Take This Course?
Advanced routing requires more than knowing protocol names or configuration commands.
Network engineers need to understand:
- How protocols establish relationships.
- How routes are exchanged.
- How paths are selected.
- How routing information is controlled.
- How multicast traffic is forwarded.
- And how modern overlay technologies rely on Layer 3 connectivity.
CSI-HO-028 develops those skills through a combination of technical explanation, configuration, experimentation, and hands-on analysis.
Related Training
Students completing this course may continue into more specialized CellStream training in areas such as:
- Advanced IPv4 networking
- IPv6 routing
- MPLS
- Advanced BGP
- Network troubleshooting
- Wireshark and packet analysis
- Ethernet
- Data center networking
- Network security
Course Availability:
Contact us for schedule dates and times via our contact form or through the details provided on the page.
View the course calendar and browse for our schedule. It will show scheduled courses and available dates for scheduling.
Course Description, Content, Outline, and Instructional Design are Copyright ©CellStream, Inc.