PM Networking

A few years ago, I was troubleshooting a large enterprise network where all routers were up, OSPF neighbors were stable, BGP sessions were established, and every engineer was saying:

✅ OSPF is working
✅ BGP is working
✅ MPLS is working

But users were still unable to reach critical applications.

The problem was not OSPF.

The problem was not BGP.

The problem was that nobody understood how OSPF, BGP, VRF, MP-BGP, NAT, PAT, VPN, IPsec, Route Leaking, Internet Access, and Service Provider technologies work together in a real production environment.

This is exactly where many networking professionals get stuck.

Most engineers learn protocols individually:

➡️ OSPF as a routing protocol
➡️ BGP as an internet routing protocol
➡️ NAT for address translation
➡️ VPN for connectivity

But in real enterprise and service provider networks, nothing works in isolation.

You must understand:

🔹 How OSPF feeds routes into BGP
🔹 How MP-BGP carries VPN routes across MPLS networks
🔹 How VRFs isolate customers while sharing the same infrastructure
🔹 How Route Leaking provides Internet access to multiple customers
🔹 How NAT/PAT work with MPLS and VPN environments
🔹 How IPsec secures traffic over public networks
🔹 How Service Providers deliver VPN services to thousands of customers

This is the difference between:

❌ Someone who can configure commands

and

✅ Someone who can troubleshoot real production networks.

That's why in our upcoming OSPF + BGP Live Course, we are not focusing on theory alone.

We are going to build and troubleshoot 100+ real-time labs covering:

🔥 OSPF Deep Dive
🔥 Advanced BGP
🔥 MP-BGP
🔥 MPLS L3VPN
🔥 VRF Technologies
🔥 Route Leaking
🔥 NAT & PAT
🔥 GRE & IPsec VPN
🔥 Enterprise & Service Provider Scenarios
🔥 Real Troubleshooting Cases

My goal is simple:

Not to make you memorize commands.

But to help you think like a Network Engineer who can solve real-world problems confidently.

Because in interviews, projects, and production environments, nobody asks:

"Do you know the OSPF command?"

They ask:

"Can you fix the network when everything looks normal but users still can't access applications?"

That is where true networking begins.

🔹 BGP Interview Questions List
📘 BGP Fundamentals

🔸 What is BGP?
🔸 Why is BGP called a Path Vector Protocol?
🔸 What is an Autonomous System (AS)?
🔸 What is an ASN (Autonomous System Number)?
🔸 Why is BGP used on the Internet?
🔸 What are the different types of BGP?
🔸 Difference between eBGP and iBGP?
🔸 Which transport protocol does BGP use?
🔸 Why does BGP use TCP instead of UDP?
🔸 Which port number does BGP use?
🔸 What are the advantages of BGP?
🔸 What are the disadvantages of BGP?

📘 BGP Neighbor Relationships

🔹 What is a BGP neighbor?
🔹 How is a BGP peering formed?
🔹 What are the BGP states?
🔹 Explain Idle State.
🔹 Explain Connect State.
🔹 Explain Active State.
🔹 Explain OpenSent State.
🔹 Explain OpenConfirm State.
🔹 Explain Established State.
🔹 Which state indicates successful peering?
🔹 Why does a BGP session get stuck in Active State?
🔹 How do you verify BGP neighbors?
🔹 How do you reset a BGP session?

📘 BGP Attributes

⭐ What is Weight?
⭐ What is Local Preference?
⭐ What is AS-PATH?
⭐ What is NEXT-HOP?
⭐ What is MED?
⭐ What is ORIGIN?
⭐ What is COMMUNITY?
⭐ Which attribute is Cisco proprietary?
⭐ Which attribute is not advertised to neighbors?
⭐ Which attribute prevents routing loops?
⭐ Which attribute is used to select the preferred exit point from an AS?

📘 BGP Best Path Selection

✅ Explain the BGP Best Path Selection Process.
✅ Which attribute is checked first?
✅ Why does higher Weight win?
✅ Why does higher Local Preference win?
✅ Why does shorter AS-PATH win?
✅ Why does lower MED win?
✅ Why is eBGP preferred over iBGP?
✅ What happens if all attributes are equal?
✅ Which route will BGP install in the routing table?

📘 Route Advertisement

📢 How do you advertise a network in BGP?
📢 What does the network command do?
📢 What is route redistribution?
📢 What is route aggregation?
📢 What is route summarization?
📢 Why is route summarization important?
📢 What is aggregate-address?
📢 What is auto-summary?

📘 iBGP Questions

🔷 Why does iBGP require a full mesh?
🔷 What is the iBGP split-horizon rule?
🔷 What is a Route Reflector?
🔷 What is a Route Reflector Client?
🔷 What is a Cluster ID?
🔷 What is a Cluster List?
🔷 What is a Confederation?
🔷 Why are Confederations used?
🔷 Difference between Route Reflector and Confederation?

📘 eBGP Questions

🌐 What is eBGP?
🌐 What is eBGP Multihop?
🌐 Why is eBGP Multihop required?
🌐 What is the default TTL value of eBGP?
🌐 How do you configure eBGP Multihop?
🌐 How does eBGP prevent routing loops?

📘 Route Filtering & Policy Control

🎯 What is route filtering?
🎯 What is a Prefix List?
🎯 What is a Route Map?
🎯 What is AS-PATH Filtering?
🎯 What is Community Filtering?
🎯 What is Route Dampening?
🎯 Why is Route Dampening used?
🎯 What is Policy-Based Routing?
🎯 How do you block specific routes?

📘 Traffic Engineering

🚦 What is AS-PATH Prepending?
🚦 Why is AS-PATH Prepending used?
🚦 How do you influence inbound traffic?
🚦 How do you influence outbound traffic?
🚦 How does Local Preference affect traffic flow?
🚦 How does MED affect traffic flow?
🚦 Explain BGP Traffic Engineering.
🚦 Explain a real-world traffic engineering scenario.

📘 BGP Communities

🏷️ What are BGP Communities?
🏷️ Why are Communities used?
🏷️ What is NO_EXPORT?
🏷️ What is NO_ADVERTISE?
🏷️ What is LOCAL_AS?
🏷️ What are Well-Known Communities?
🏷️ How do you configure Communities?

📘 Troubleshooting Questions

🛠️ BGP neighbor is stuck in Active state. What will you check?
🛠️ BGP peering is not forming. How do you troubleshoot?
🛠️ A route is missing from the BGP table. What will you check?
🛠️ How do you verify advertised routes?
🛠️ How do you verify received routes?
🛠️ How do you verify the BGP table?
🛠️ How do you verify the routing table?
🛠️ How do you perform a soft reset?
🛠️ How do you perform a hard reset?
🛠️ What does the ">" symbol mean in BGP output?
🛠️ What does the "*" symbol mean in BGP output?
🛠️ What does the "i" symbol mean in BGP output?

📘 Advanced BGP (CCNP/Data Center/SP)

🚀 What is MP-BGP?
🚀 What is VPNv4?
🚀 What is VPNv6?
🚀 What is Route Distinguisher (RD)?
🚀 What is Route Target (RT)?
🚀 What is BGP-LU?
🚀 What is EVPN?
🚀 What is BGP PIC?
🚀 What is Add-Path?
🚀 What is Graceful Restart?
🚀 What is NSF (Non-Stop Forwarding)?
🚀 What is Internet Routing Table?
🚀 Approximately how many routes exist in the global routing table today?
🚀 Why is BGP convergence slower than OSPF?
🚀 How does BGP scale to support the Internet?

Become the Most Demanding Network Engineer: Automation with Python & Ansible

The future of networking is no longer manual — it’s automated, scalable, and intelligent.

Organizations today manage thousands of devices across complex infrastructures. To keep up with speed, reliability, and zero-downtime expectations, companies are rapidly adopting automation. This has created a powerful demand for engineers who can bridge the gap between traditional networking and modern automation.

This program is designed to transform you from a conventional network engineer into a highly skilled automation professional who can manage enterprise networks efficiently using Python and Ansible.

🔥 Hands-On Automation Training for Real Networks

This is a practical, job-focused program — not just theory.

You’ll work on real-world scenarios used by enterprise teams, learning how to automate configurations, deployments, monitoring, and troubleshooting across multiple network devices.

By the end of this training, you will confidently build and manage automated network environments.

🎯 Skills You Will Gain

Throughout the program, you will develop expertise in:

✔ Core concepts of network automation
✔ Python programming tailored for networking tasks
✔ Infrastructure as Code (IaC) fundamentals
✔ Setting up and managing Ansible environments
✔ Writing powerful automation playbooks
✔ Automating large-scale network configurations
✔ Working with network modules for enterprise devices
✔ Backup, compliance, and configuration management
✔ Automating routine troubleshooting and operations
✔ Designing efficient and repeatable network workflows

You will learn how to eliminate repetitive manual tasks and replace them with reliable, automated processes.

📈 Why This Skillset Is Critical Today

The networking industry is evolving faster than ever.

Modern companies are looking for engineers who can automate infrastructure, reduce errors, and deploy changes at scale.

With automation skills, you can:

✔ Save hours of manual work
✔ Increase network reliability
✔ Reduce human errors
✔ Deliver faster deployments
✔ Stand out in competitive job markets

Automation is no longer optional — it’s a core skill for future-ready engineers.

💼 Career Paths After Completion

This program prepares you for high-demand roles such as:

• Network Automation Engineer
• DevOps Engineer (Networking Domain)
• Infrastructure Automation Specialist
• Network Operations Engineer
• Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)

Professionals with both networking and automation expertise are among the highest-valued in today’s IT industry.

🚀 Take the Next Step

Step into the future of networking and upgrade your skills with automation.

📩 WhatsApp: https://wa.me/+918511826341
🌐 Enroll Here: https://pmnetworking.in/courses/python-automation-for-network-engineers/

Some Labs of the OSPF+BGP Live Course Which is Starting Soon, If you want to Practice this kind of real-time scenarios then register yourself at pmnetworking.in

3-Tier vs Spine-Leaf Architecture, video is coming soon on our YouTube channel.