Advanced Network Administration and Virtualization

This unit covers advanced operational tasks required to design, deploy, secure, and maintain modern networked systems. Students will work with virtualization and HCI, backup and recovery strategies, identity and access administration, and network troubleshooting and security tools to prepare for entry-level network systems administration roles.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze network topologies and TCP/IP implementation plans to select appropriate WAN links (e.g., Ethernet private lines), address schemes, and topology choices that meet availability and performance requirements
• Configure and deploy virtualization and storage solutions, including selecting hosts, creating virtual machines and disks, integrating hyperconverged infrastructure, and implementing backup appliances and file-based backup procedures to meet RTO/RPO targets
• Demonstrate identity and system administration skills by creating, modifying, disabling, and deleting users and groups; managing organizational units and access rules; using sudo/root and aliases; and configuring virtual hosts
• Evaluate and apply network troubleshooting and security practices using diagnostic commands and tools (e.g., pathping, DNS reverse lookups), antivirus and spam mitigation strategies, remote assistance techniques, and license/compliance considerations