are responsible for implementing, maintaining, supporting, developing and, in some cases designing communication networks within an organisation or between organisations. Their goal is to ensure the integrity of high availability network infrastructure in order to provide maximum performance for their users, such as staff, clients, customers and suppliers. Networks can include: computer; Network engineers may work internally as part of an organisation's IT support team, or externally as part of an outsourced IT networking consultancy firm working with a number of clients Tasks usually include establishing networking environment by designing system configuration, directing system installation, defining, documenting, and enforcing system standards; the design and implementation of new solutions and improving resilience of the current environment; maximizing network performance by monitoring performance, troubleshooting network problems and outages, scheduling upgrades and collaborating with network architects on network optimisation; undertaking data network fault investigations in local and wide area environments, using information from multiple sources; securing network system by establishing and enforcing policies, and defining and monitoring access; the support and administration of firewall environments in line with IT security policy; updating job knowledge by participating in educational opportunities, reading professional publications, maintaining personal networks and participating in professional organisations; reporting network operational status by gathering, prioritising information and managing projects; upgrading data network equipment to latest stable firmware releases; configuration of routing and switching equipment; configuration of hosted IP voice services; basic configuration of firewalls; remote support of on-sit