Cloud Computing Roadmap
Mastering the Global Infrastructure and Architectures of the Modern Cloud
Your Journey at a Glance
💡 How to use this roadmap
Work through each phase in order. Click on a skill to expand it — you'll find a description and curated resources. Don't rush; understanding beats speed. Complete one phase before moving to the next.
Foundations & Cloud Economics
Understand why the cloud is more than just 'someone else's computer'. Learn about the shared responsibility model.
Networking & Global Infrastructure
Master the plumbing of the cloud. Learn how to design secure and fast virtual networks.
IAM: Identity & Access Management
The most critical layer of cloud security. Learn to manage users and permissions at scale.
Compute: From VMs to Serverless
Choosing the right engine for your workload. Balance control vs simplicity.
Storage: Object & Block
Storing petabytes of data. Learn to manage lifecycle, durability, and cost.
Managed Databases & PaaS
Stop managing database servers. Learn to leverage managed services for relational and NoSQL data.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Defining your data center in code. Learn to automate everything with Terraform.
Well-Architected & FinOps
The professional finish. Learn to build for cost-efficiency, reliability, and security.
Roadmap Complete!
You now have the foundations of a production-ready Java engineer. Apply by building real projects.
Architect a Multi-Region Disaster Recovery Stack
Use Terraform to architect and deploy a production-grade web application across two AWS regions, featuring a global database and automated failover.
What you'll build
- 100% Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform modules
- Cross-region RDS Read-Replica with automated promotion logic
- CloudFront distribution with WAF (Web Application Firewall) for global security
- Global Accelerator / Route53 Health Checks for multi-region DNS failover
- Auto-scaling (ASG) with a custom golden-image pipeline
- Real-time cost anomaly detection using CloudWatch Metrics and Budgets
Tech stack
Key highlights
- ✦Demonstrates mastery of high-availability cloud architecture
- ✦Focuses on security, cost-efficiency, and operational excellence
- ✦Provides a reusable IaC template for production environments
Real-World Scenarios
Practical case studies where these skills are applied.
01The $50,000 Surprise: NAT Gateway Costs
The Problem
A startup's AWS bill spiked by $50,000 in a month due to 'Data Transfer' costs. The culprit was inter-region traffic routed through a NAT Gateway.
The Solution
Implemented 'VPC Endpoints' for S3 and DynamoDB to keep traffic within the AWS private network. Configured regional caching to minimize cross-region calls.
Outcome
02The Public Secret: S3 Data Breach
The Problem
Sensitive user documents were discovered on a public URL because an S3 bucket was accidentally set to 'Public Access' during testing.
The Solution
Enabled 'Block Public Access' at the account level. Migrated to 'Signed URLs' for temporary access and implemented IAM roles and bucket policies for strict access control.
Outcome
03Regional Failure: The East-1 Outage
The Problem
A major cloud provider's US-East-1 region went offline, taking down the entire system for 6 hours because everything was in a single region.
The Solution
Architected a Multi-Region deployment with 'Global Tables' and cross-region backups. Used GeoDNS to automatically failover traffic to a healthy region.
Outcome