CloudNetX study plan

Map the exam blueprint's Domain 1 sub-objectives into a personal gap list with a confidence rating (1-5) for each

Sketch a three-tier cloud network topology (edge, transit/hub, workload VPC/VNet) on paper and justify each tier's purpose aloud in under five minutes

Compare hub-and-spoke against a full-mesh transit design on cost, blast radius, and routing complexity, writing a one-paragraph trade-off for each

Configure a basic VPC/VNet with two subnets, route tables, and an internet gateway in a free-tier cloud account and verify reachability

Design a hybrid connectivity solution that combines site-to-site VPN and dedicated interconnect, stating when each is preferred

Size and place subnets across at least two availability zones and document the CIDR allocation scheme to avoid overlap

Explain how DNS, load balancing, and service endpoints interact in a multi-tier application by tracing one request end to end

Draft a redundancy and failover plan for a single-region design, naming the failure modes it covers and those it does not

Classify the shared-responsibility boundary for network controls across IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS with three concrete examples per model

Build a layered segmentation scheme (security groups, NACLs/firewall rules, network policies) and justify the ordering of enforcement points

Configure identity-based and network-based access controls in a sandbox and prove that an unauthorized path is blocked

Enumerate the top five cloud network attack surfaces (public exposure, lateral movement, credential theft, misconfigured peering, DNS abuse) and pair each with a mitigating control

Redesign last week's segmentation to add inspection (firewall/IDS) without breaking the request flow, and document the new packet path

Perform a threat-model pass (STRIDE or similar) on the Week 2 hybrid design and record at least six threats with mitigations

Compare zero-trust network access with traditional VPN concentrator models on latency, auditability, and operational cost

Reconcile the architecture and security documents so every control in the matrix maps to a component in the topology

Instrument a sandbox network with flow logs, metrics, and at least one alert threshold, then trigger the alert deliberately

Write three queries or filters that isolate traffic by source, destination, and rejected connections, and interpret the results

Define four service-level indicators for network health (latency, error rate, throughput, saturation) and state the measurement source for each

Distinguish what each telemetry type (flow logs, packet capture, metrics, traces) can and cannot answer

Diagnose a simulated connectivity failure by working the layer stack (name resolution, routing, security policy, endpoint health) and record each test and result

Reproduce and resolve a routing-loop or asymmetric-path scenario in the sandbox and explain the root cause in writing

Build a triage decision tree that separates DNS, security-group, route-table, and peering causes within a bounded number of steps

Practice articulating a troubleshooting narrative aloud in under three minutes for a peer audience

Complete a timed mixed-domain practice set and tag every miss by domain and by failure type (knowledge gap, misread, or reasoning error)

Re-teach the three weakest tagged topics from memory on a blank page, then check against source material

Re-derive the architecture and security trade-offs from Weeks 1-4 without notes to confirm retention

Reduce the personal gap list from Week 1 to no more than five remaining low-confidence items

Drill the remaining low-confidence items until each is explained correctly twice in a row without references

Rehearse design and troubleshooting scenarios under time pressure, speaking the structure (requirements, constraints, trade-offs, verification) each time

Review the Week 4 package and Week 6 case files to consolidate cross-domain reasoning patterns

Finalize a one-page pre-exam reference sheet of decision rules, limits, and trade-off heuristics