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    Network Foundations for System Design Interviews

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Why Networking Fundamentals Matter

Most developers skip networking basics and jump straight into system design patterns.

Big mistake!

Interviewers will drill you on TCP vs UDP trade-offs, DNS resolution strategies, IP addressing in cloud environments, and how network decisions impact your architecture. Without solid networking fundamentals, your system design answers will sound hollow.

This course cuts through the noise and teaches you exactly what you need. No CCNA exam prep, no packet-level binary parsing—just the networking knowledge that matters for building and designing distributed applications. Every concept is explained through the lens of real-world application architecture and system design scenarios.

Course curriculum

    1. Introduction: What is a Network?

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    2. Why Study Networking for System Design Interviews?

    3. Four Key Network Components

    4. Introducing Network Communication Models

    1. The OSI Model

    2. Physical, Data Link and Network Layers

    3. Transport to Physical Layers

    4. Why OSI model matters

    5. TCP/IP Protocol Suite

    6. TCP/IP Layers and Protocols

    7. Protocol Diversity and Alignment

    1. Bottom-Up: From Binary to Physical Transmission

    2. Data Link Layer - Error Detection and Frames

    3. Network Layer - Packets and IP Addresses

    4. Transport Layer - Reliable Data Delivery

    5. Packet Switching - How Data Travels the Internet

    6. Circuit Switching vs Packet Switching

    7. Audience Questions

    1. IP Addresses Explained

    2. How Devices Get IP Addresses - DHCP Explained

    3. Public vs Private IP Addresses

    4. Network Address Translation (NAT) Deep Dive

    5. NAT Mapping and Port Translation

    6. Reserved IP Ranges and Special Addresses

    1. IP Address Structure

    2. Classful addressing

    3. CIDR - Classless Inter-Domain Routing

    4. Understanding Subnet Masks

    5. Subnetting Fundamentals and Use Cases

    6. Variable Length Subnet Masks (VLSM)

    7. Subnet Mask Calculation Exercises

    1. Introduction to IPv6

    2. IPv6 Address Types

    3. IPv6 Security and Direct Addressability

    4. IPv6 Advanced Concepts

    5. IPv6 Subnetting

    1. Introduction to Routing

    2. Routing Tables Deep Dive

    3. Routing Table Matching and Hierarchy

    4. Default Gateway and Routing Priority

    5. Static vs Dynamic Routing

    6. Routing Protocols Overview

    7. Interior Gateway Protocols

    8. Exterior Gateway Protocols

    9. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)

    10. BGP Routing and AS Numbers

    11. BGP in System Design

    1. Transport Layer Introduction

    2. The Two Generals Problem

    3. TCP vs UDP Overview

    4. TCP Guarantees and Features

    5. TCP Connection and Flow Control

    6. TCP Real-World Applications

    7. TCP Header Structure

    8. TCP Three-Way Handshake

    9. TCP in System Design

    10. Introduction to UDP

    11. UDP Use Cases

    12. UDP Header Structure

    13. UDP Design Benefits

    14. TCP Challenges and Design Decisions

    1. Introduction to DNS

    2. The Fundamental Problem with IPs and Domains

    3. Understanding DNS Hierarchy and Resolution

    4. DNS Resolvers and Their Role

    5. Understanding DNS Caching

    6. Optimizing DNS Performance

    7. Handling DNS Failures

    8. DNS in Microservices and Containers

    9. DNS with Kubernetes

About this course

  • $50.00
  • 70 lessons
  • 6 hours of video content

Not a CCNA Course!

Every concept is taught through the lens of application architecture and system design interviews.

No wasted time on irrelevant topics. Just the networking knowledge that makes you a better developer and designer.

  • Explain the OSI and TCP/IP models from a developer's perspective, identifying which layers you control vs rely upon in modern application stacks

  • Understand IP addressing fundamentals including IPv4 vs IPv6, DHCP allocation, and how devices acquire addresses dynamically

  • Articulate public vs private IP addressing and explain how NAT (Network Address Translation) enables multiple devices to share a single public IP

  • Design cloud network architectures with VPCs, public/private subnets, CIDR notation, and proper IP allocation strategies

  • Describe the complete DNS resolution workflow from stub resolver through recursive resolvers to authoritative nameservers, and explain caching strategies

  • Explain TCP vs UDP trade-offs and justify protocol selection for different scenarios (REST APIs, video streaming, real-time gaming)

Discover your potential, starting today

Enroll today