Cloud Pro: Google Cloud Networking: Choose, Compare and Launch

What's inside

1. Level 1: The Google Cloud Networking Map on One PageFree
   Learners place every Google Cloud networking service on one map, grouped by job: virtual networks, links between networks, hybrid links, load balancing and delivery, DNS, private access, network security and monitoring. Each service is shown with its current and former names and its lifecycle status.
2. Level 2: Writing a Standard Connectivity ProfileFree
   Learners write a reusable connectivity profile that turns a workload's networking needs into concrete answers. It covers users, sites and regions, north-south and east-west traffic, protocols, latency and bandwidth, availability, hybrid links, zero trust, DDoS exposure, compliance data paths, team skills and the cost model.
3. Level 3: The Global VPC: Subnets, Routes and Modes
   Learners work through all nine parts of the lesson for the global VPC: regional subnets in a global network, auto versus custom mode, routes, the limits that bite, cost levers and a gcloud and Terraform quick start with clean-up.
4. Level 4: VPC Firewall Rules and Firewall Policies
   Learners choose between VPC firewall rules, hierarchical firewall policies and global or regional network firewall policies. They learn how rules are evaluated and how to scope rules with tags and service accounts.
5. Level 5: Shared VPC versus VPC Network Peering
   Learners compare central network ownership through a Shared VPC host and service projects with decentralised VPC Network Peering. They cover non-transitive routing, peering-group limits, IAM boundaries and cost.
6. Level 6: Network Connectivity Center Hubs and Spokes
   Learners use Network Connectivity Center as the managed hub for VPC spokes, hybrid spokes (VPN, Interconnect and router appliance) and producer VPC spokes. They also cover its topologies and how hub data transfer is priced.
7. Level 7: Cloud DNS: Public, Private, Peering and Forwarding
   Learners design name resolution with Cloud DNS public and private zones, forwarding and peering zones, DNS policies and inbound and outbound forwarding for hybrid resolution. They work out query-based pricing.
8. Level 8: Application Load Balancers: Global and Regional
   Learners choose between the global external, regional external, cross-region internal and regional internal Application Load Balancers. They cover backends, URL maps and certificates, and the hourly and data-processed costs.
9. Level 9: Network Load Balancers: Proxy and Passthrough
   Learners decide when layer-4 traffic needs a proxy Network Load Balancer and when it needs a passthrough one. They cover client IP preservation, protocol support (TCP, UDP and others) and the internal load balancer used as a next hop.
10. Level 10: Cloud CDN versus Media CDN
    Learners compare Cloud CDN, which is tied to Application Load Balancer backends, with Media CDN, which is built for large-scale streaming and downloads. They cover cache keys, invalidation, signed requests and cache egress pricing.
11. Level 11: Cloud NAT: Public and Private Egress
    Learners give private workloads outbound access with Public NAT and connect overlapping networks with Private NAT. They plan port allocation, avoid port-exhaustion failures and model per-gateway and data-processed charges.
12. Level 12: Private Service Connect: Endpoints and Backends
    Learners reach Google APIs and producer services privately with Private Service Connect endpoints, backends and interfaces. They compare PSC with Private Google Access and peering-based private services access.
13. Level 13: Cloud Router and Dynamic Routing with BGP
    Learners use Cloud Router as the BGP control plane for VPN, Interconnect, NAT and NCC. They cover regional versus global dynamic routing, custom route advertisements, route priorities and BFD.
14. Level 14: HA VPN: Building a 99.99% Encrypted Link
    Learners build an HA VPN with two interfaces, tunnels and BGP sessions, meet the topology requirements for the 99.99% SLA, and migrate off Classic VPN, which lost dynamic routing support on 1 August 2025.
15. Level 15: Dedicated and Partner Interconnect
    Learners choose between Dedicated Interconnect and Partner Interconnect for private hybrid links. They cover VLAN attachments, redundancy layouts for 99.9% and 99.99%, MACsec and HA VPN over Interconnect, and port, attachment and egress costs.
16. Level 16: Cross-Cloud Interconnect and Multicloud Links
    Learners connect Google Cloud to AWS, Azure, Oracle or Alibaba Cloud over Cross-Cloud Interconnect. They see who operates each side, how it differs from HA VPN between clouds, and what drives cost in both directions.
17. Level 17: Cloud Armor: WAF and DDoS Protection
    Learners protect internet-facing load balancers with Cloud Armor security policies, preconfigured WAF rules, rate limiting, bot management and Adaptive Protection. They compare the Standard pay-as-you-go option with Cloud Armor Enterprise.
18. Level 18: Cloud NGFW: Essentials, Standard, Enterprise
    Learners choose a Cloud NGFW tier: Essentials for basic segmentation, Standard for FQDN objects and threat intelligence, or Enterprise for intrusion prevention through firewall endpoints and TLS inspection. They weigh it against third-party appliances.
19. Level 19: Network Intelligence Center and Observability
    Learners use Network Intelligence Center modules to check, watch and explain network behaviour: Connectivity Tests, Network Topology, Performance Dashboard, Firewall Insights and Network Analyzer. They also use VPC Flow Logs and firewall logging.
20. Level 20: IP Address Planning for the Whole Estate
    Learners plan IPv4 and IPv6 address space across regions, environments, Shared VPC hosts, GKE secondary ranges, PSC and hybrid links. The plan avoids overlaps that would block peering, NCC or on-premises routing later.
21. Level 21: Hub-and-Spoke and Other Network Topologies
    Compare single-VPC, Shared VPC, peering mesh, Network Connectivity Center hub-and-spoke and appliance-based transit topologies so you can pick one that fits the connectivity profile's segmentation, scale and team skills.
22. Level 22: Modelling Data Transfer and Network Tier Costs
    Build a cost model that follows every traffic path (inter-zone, inter-region, internet egress, hybrid egress, load balancer and NAT data processing, PSC and CDN) and compare Premium and Standard network tiers with dated example prices.
23. Level 23: Troubleshooting and Observability Across the Estate
    Diagnose connectivity, latency and security-policy problems end to end using VPC Flow Logs, firewall and Cloud Armor logging, load balancer logs, Cloud Monitoring metrics and Network Intelligence Center tools in a repeatable runbook.
24. Level 24: Migrating an On-Premises Network Design
    Translate an existing on-premises network (VLANs, firewalls, DMZs, MPLS links, internal DNS and load balancers) into a phased Google Cloud design with hybrid connectivity, coexistence and cut-over steps.
25. Level 25: Building a Weighted Selection Scorecard
    Turn the standard connectivity profile into a weighted scorecard with clear criteria, scoring rubrics and must-have gates that rank networking service options in a way others can repeat and defend.
26. Level 26: Scoring Google Cloud Against Another Cloud
    Apply the scorecard to Google Cloud and one other provider using dated, cited evidence from official documentation, SLAs and price lists, mapping equivalent services and the differences that change the decision.
27. Level 27: Final Challenge: Decision Workshop and Selection Record Exam
    Run a full decision workshop on a realistic scenario, drawing on the whole course from service map and profile through service choice, topology, costs, operations and cross-cloud scoring, and end with a one-page selection record.

Access

The first 2 levels are free with a free account. Every level, the podcast edition and the AI tutor come with All Access at £4.99/month or any Creator plan — see pricing.

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