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Cloud & Infrastructure

Cloud Networking

Cloud networking is where traditional networking meets software-defined infrastructure. The protocols are the same ones that have always run the internet; what changes is that the entire topology is now created and destroyed by code.

5 stages2 projectsIntermediate5 to 7 months, part time

Start here

You need real networking fundamentals before the cloud part makes sense. If subnetting is not comfortable, do Stage 1 slowly or start with Network Engineering.

Before you begin

  • Comfortable with IP addressing and subnetting
  • Basic Linux command line
01

Networking fundamentals

The cloud did not replace these. It hid them behind a console.

Required

Core networking

Every cloud networking feature is one of these concepts with a product name attached.

What to learn

  • The OSI and TCP/IP models
  • IPv4 and IPv6 addressing
  • Subnetting and CIDR
  • Routing
  • TCP versus UDP
  • NAT

Practice

Subnet a /16 into usable ranges for three tiers across two availability zones, on paper, without a calculator.

Next: DNS and TLS, the two services everything depends on.

Required

DNS and TLS

A remarkable proportion of all outages are DNS or an expired certificate. Both are preventable.

What to learn

  • Record types
  • Resolution and caching
  • TTL strategy
  • Certificates and chains of trust
  • Automated renewal

Tools

  • dig
  • openssl
  • Let's Encrypt

Practice

Trace a domain from root to answer with dig +trace, and explain each hop.

Next: Cloud virtual networks.

02

Virtual networks in the cloud

Where the physical layer disappears and everything becomes an API call.

Required

Virtual private clouds

The single most important cloud networking construct, and the one most often configured by copying a tutorial.

What to learn

  • VPCs and subnets
  • Route tables
  • Internet and NAT gateways
  • Public versus private subnet design
  • Multi-availability-zone layout

Tools

  • Your cloud provider's networking console and CLI

Practice

Build a three-tier network by hand: public load balancer, private application tier, isolated database tier. Prove the database is unreachable from the internet.

Next: Controlling traffic.

Required

Security groups and network policy

The cloud's primary access control, and the most common place an accidental exposure happens.

What to learn

  • Stateful versus stateless rules
  • Security groups and network ACLs
  • Least-privilege rules
  • Egress control, which is usually ignored
  • Auditing what is actually open

Practice

Audit an existing environment for anything open to 0.0.0.0/0. Justify each one or close it.

Next: Getting traffic in.

03

Getting traffic in and distributing it

The edge, where users meet your system.

Required

Load balancing

The mechanism behind both scaling and zero-downtime deployment.

What to learn

  • Layer 4 versus layer 7
  • Health checks
  • Session affinity and why to avoid it
  • TLS termination
  • Cross-zone balancing

Next: Content delivery.

Recommended

CDN and edge

For users on slower connections, which is most of West Africa, the CDN is often the single largest performance win available.

What to learn

  • Caching at the edge
  • Cache keys and invalidation
  • Origin protection
  • Edge functions in outline

Project

intermediate

A resilient public application

A multi-zone network with a load balancer, private application tier, isolated database, a CDN in front, TLS with automated renewal, and DNS failover. All defined in infrastructure as code.

  • Terraform
  • Your cloud provider
  • A CDN

You can lose an availability zone and stay up, and you have tested it.

Next: Connecting networks together.

04

Connecting networks

Where cloud networking gets genuinely difficult, and genuinely well paid.

Advanced

Hybrid and multi-network connectivity

Most organisations are not purely cloud. Joining an office, a data centre and a cloud account is common and rarely simple.

What to learn

  • Site-to-site VPN
  • Dedicated interconnects
  • VPC peering and its limits
  • Transit gateways and hub-and-spoke
  • Overlapping address space, which will happen to you

Practice

Design an address plan for three environments and two offices that will not collide when the company acquires another one.

Next: Routing at scale.

Advanced

BGP and dynamic routing

Dedicated connections and multi-region designs run on BGP. It is the boundary between cloud networking and real network engineering.

What to learn

  • BGP fundamentals
  • Route advertisement and filtering
  • Failover behaviour
  • Asymmetric routing problems

Next: Observing and securing it.

05

Observe and secure

Networks fail silently and partially, which makes visibility the whole game.

Required

Network observability

Without flow-level visibility, every network problem becomes an argument between teams.

What to learn

  • Flow logs
  • Packet mirroring
  • Latency and packet loss monitoring
  • DNS query logging
  • Reachability analysis tools

Project

advanced

A hybrid connectivity design

Design and build connectivity between two isolated cloud networks and a simulated on-premises site, with non-overlapping addressing, encrypted transit, flow logging, and a documented failover test.

  • Terraform
  • Your cloud provider
  • A VPN appliance or software

You can plan addressing and connectivity for an organisation rather than a project.

Where this leads

You do not have to pick one now. These are the directions this path opens up once you are working.

Network Engineering

Go deeper into routing, switching and the physical layer.

View roadmap

Cloud Engineering

Broaden across the rest of the cloud platform.

View roadmap

Solutions Architecture

Design whole systems, with the network as one concern.

View roadmap

Continue your journey

The paths closest to this one. Skills overlap more than the job titles suggest.

Network Engineering

Design and run the networks everything else quietly depends on.

View

Cloud Engineering

From never opening a cloud console to running real workloads on one.

View

Systems & Infrastructure Engineering

Understand and run the machines everything else is built on.

View

Solutions Architecture

Design systems that fit the business, the budget and the team you actually have.

View

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