Updated in May 2025.

This course now features Coursera Coach! A smarter way to learn with interactive, real-time conversations that help you test your knowledge, challenge assumptions, and deepen your understanding as you progress through the course. This course empowers IT professionals with advanced knowledge on critical infrastructure. Covering everything from the tiers of the internet to VPNs and IoT, to setting up virtual environments and securing cloud assets, this curriculum equips learners with the tools they need to manage, troubleshoot, and enhance both physical and virtual IT systems. In this course, learners begin with an exploration of internet architecture, diving into LANs, WANs, broadband connections, and firewalls. You'll also understand how application-layer protocols and VPNs enable secure communications across networks. The journey continues with a comprehensive understanding of virtualization, walking through the setup and management of virtual machines and cloud environments. Finally, the course transitions into IT security fundamentals, from protecting mobile devices to advanced cloud security measures, ensuring participants can safeguard modern tech ecosystems. Ideal for IT professionals, network administrators, and CompTIA Network+ candidates. A basic understanding of networking concepts is required, and familiarity with virtualization is helpful but not essential.