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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?

      FREE PREVIEW

    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

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