Learning
Learning paths
Reading a knowledge base at random leaves gaps. Each path below is an order of study through existing IT Atlas articles, chosen so every step depends only on the steps before it.
IT Fundamentals
Build the mental model of a modern IT environment before specialising in any layer.
- Describe the layers of an IT environment and how they depend on each other
- Explain the difference between IT, OT and cybersecurity
- Follow a connectivity fault from cable to application
Networking Fundamentals
Work up from frames and addresses to routing, segmentation and enterprise edge services.
- Subnet confidently and design address space that summarises cleanly
- Explain DNS and DHCP behaviour well enough to diagnose failures
- Describe where VLANs, firewalls and load balancers each apply policy
Identity and Access Management
Learn the identity control plane: directories, protocols, policy and privileged access.
- Explain Kerberos, SAML, OAuth and OIDC and when each applies
- Design Conditional Access policy with break glass and rollback
- Remove standing privilege using tiering and just in time activation
Microsoft 365 Administrator
Understand the tenant as one interconnected system rather than a set of separate products.
- Trace where Teams, SharePoint and Exchange data actually lives
- Apply a Conditional Access and device compliance baseline
- Configure email authentication and audit retention correctly
Cybersecurity Fundamentals
Understand security as a layer across the whole environment, with detection and recovery as first class concerns.
- Map controls to prevent, protect, detect, respond and recover
- Explain how real intrusions chain minor weaknesses
- Describe what a SOC does and what telemetry it needs
Cloud Fundamentals
Learn cloud as an architecture and governance discipline, not a product catalogue.
- Explain IaaS, PaaS and SaaS responsibility boundaries
- Describe a landing zone and why it comes first
- Identify the misconfigurations behind most cloud incidents
Zero Trust
Sequence a Zero Trust programme across identity, devices, applications, network and data.
- Explain policy decision and enforcement points
- Sequence delivery so each stage enables the next
- Define measurable milestones instead of an end state
IT Operations
Run an environment predictably: monitoring, service management, change, assets and automation.
- Design alerting that is actionable rather than noisy
- Distinguish incident, problem and change practices
- Keep asset and configuration data accurate enough to rely on
IT Architecture
Move from configuring systems to designing environments with stated trade offs.
- Produce a design with requirements, constraints and rejected alternatives
- Identify failure points before they are discovered in production
- Use reference architectures as a starting point rather than a template