IT Engineer / Architect Foundational Knowledge

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have some extra time to spend while we follow our local authorities' directions and stay home, so I figured I'd make a list of useful foundation concepts every engineer / architect should understand before thinking on specializing on a specific IT track.

For those of you thinking about starting a career in technology, I hope this helps lay a good foundation to get you started and learn some nice stuff during these difficult times.

Whilst I know there are many more things you could add to this list, I guess this is a good start.

Please stay safe everyone, feel free to share!

Networking Foundations

• OSI Networking Model: https://medium.com/@int0x33/day-51-understanding-the-osi-model-f22d5f3df75
• TCP IP: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/tcp-ip-model/
• 3-Way Handshake: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/tcp-3-way-handshake-process/
• IPv6: https://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/ipv6/
• Private and Public IP Addressing: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1918
• SSL / TLS: https://www.csoonline.com/article/3246212/what-is-ssl-tls-and-how-this-encryption-protocol-works.html
• TLS Handshake: https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/what-happens-in-a-tls-handshake/
• DHCP: https://whatismyipaddress.com/dhcp
• DNS: https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/dns/what-is-dns/
• LAN vs WAN: https://www.diffen.com/difference/LAN_vs_WAN
• VPN: https://www.howtogeek.com/133680/htg-explains-what-is-a-vpn/
• Proxies: https://www.linuxbabe.com/it-knowledge/differences-between-forward-proxy-and-reverse-proxy
• Common network ports: https://opensource.com/article/18/10/common-network-ports
• Common network protocols: https://www.interserver.net/tips/kb/common-network-protocols-ports/ 
• NAT vs PAT: https://techdifferences.com/difference-between-nat-and-pat.html
• Common network devices: https://blog.netwrix.com/2019/01/08/network-devices-explained/

Web

• HTTP: https://www.speedcheck.org/wiki/http/
• HTTP Response Codes: https://restfulapi.net/http-status-codes/
• URLs vs URIs: https://danielmiessler.com/study/difference-between-uri-url/
• APIs: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/01/understanding-using-rest-api/
• HTTP Methods: https://www.restapitutorial.com/lessons/httpmethods.html
• Load Balancers: https://www.radware.com/glossary/loadbalancing/
• Content Switching: http://www.firewall.cx/networking-topics/general-networking/961-cisco-switches-content-switching.html
• Web Servers: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Common_questions/What_is_a_web_server

Storage

• SMB: https://www.samba.org/cifs/docs/what-is-smb.html
• NAS vs SAN: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/whats-the-diff-nas-vs-san/
• NTFS: https://www.datto.com/library/what-is-ntfs-and-how-does-it-work
• NFS: https://web.mit.edu/rhel-doc/5/RHEL-5-manual/Deployment_Guide-en-US/ch-nfs.html
• FTP: https://www.wired.com/2010/02/ftp_for_beginners/
• SQL Databases vs NoSQL Databases: https://www.guru99.com/sql-vs-nosql.html 

Authentication

• Active Directory: https://searchwindowsserver.techtarget.com/definition/Active-Directory
• Kerberos: https://www.varonis.com/blog/kerberos-authentication-explained/
• SAML: https://www.varonis.com/blog/what-is-saml/
• Forms: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-forms/overview/older-versions-security/introduction/an-overview-of-forms-authentication-cs
• OAuth: https://developer.okta.com/blog/2017/06/21/what-the-heck-is-oauth
• OpenID: https://auth0.com/docs/protocols/oidc
• HTTP Auth: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Authentication
• MFA: https://www.onelogin.com/learn/what-is-mfa
• PKI: https://www.ssh.com/pki

Common Terms / Processes

• ITIL Processes Summary: https://www.simplilearn.com/itil-key-concepts-and-summary-article
• RPO and RTO: https://www.druva.com/blog/understanding-rpo-and-rto/
• High Availability: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/what-is-high-availability
• Disaster Recovery: https://www.networkworld.com/article/3411457/what-is-disaster-recovery-how-to-ensure-business-continuity.html
• MTTF vs MTTR vs MTBF: https://www.bmc.com/blogs/mtbf-vs-mtff-vs-mttr-whats-difference/
• SLA vs SLO vs SLI: https://enqueuezero.com/the-difference-between-sli-slo-and-sla.html
• Governance: https://www.cio.com/article/2438931/governanceit-governance-definition-and-solutions.html
• InfoSec Concepts: https://danielmiessler.com/study/infosecconcepts/
• What is DevOps: https://resources.collab.net/devops-101/what-is-devops
• Distributed systems: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/a-thorough-introduction-to-distributed-systems-3b91562c9b3c/

Misc

• Group Policy: https://www.howtogeek.com/125171/htg-explains-what-group-policy-is-and-how-you-can-use-it/
• User Profiles: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/desktop/legacy/bb776892(v%3Dvs.85)
• SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS: https://www.bmc.com/blogs/saas-vs-paas-vs-iaas-whats-the-difference-and-how-to-choose/
• Virtualization: https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/virtualization/what-is-virtualization
• Containers: https://cloud.google.com/containers
• VDI: https://www.citrix.com/glossary/vdi.html
• What is Cloud Computing: https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-cloud-computing-everything-you-need-to-know-from-public-and-private-cloud-to-software-as-a/
• Single Tenancy vs Multi Tenancy: https://www.liquidweb.com/kb/what-is-single-tenant-vs-multi-tenant-software/

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