The technology map

The operating system on most Cisco routers and switches — configured from a command line.

Demonstrates

Routing · Switching & VLANs · Network Troubleshooting · Network Design

Time in the IOS CLI is the single most transferable networking skill there is. Junos, Arista EOS, FortiOS and cloud routing all become pattern-matching once you have it.

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Juniper’s network operating system, common in service provider and large enterprise networks.

Demonstrates

Routing · Switching & VLANs · WAN & Transport · Network Troubleshooting

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A network OS built around Linux and automation, common in data centres.

Demonstrates

Switching & VLANs · Routing · Configuration Management

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Controllers and access points that provide coverage across a building or campus.

Demonstrates

Wireless & RF · Network Troubleshooting · Network Access Control

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The control systems running factories, utilities and physical processes, where downtime is measured in danger.

Demonstrates

Segmentation · Device Discovery & Profiling · Continuous Monitoring · Risk & Compliance

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The protocol networks use to tell each other how to reach one another — it is how the internet decides where traffic goes.

Demonstrates

Routing · WAN & Transport · Network Design · Cloud Networking

BGP is the bridge between three careers at once: service provider networking, internet-scale architecture, and cloud connectivity. Every major cloud’s hybrid networking is BGP underneath.

Used by

A routing protocol used inside one organisation to work out the best internal path automatically.

Demonstrates

Routing · Network Troubleshooting · Network Design

Understanding OSPF means you think in topologies and convergence, not just in devices — that is the mental shift from network administration toward network engineering.

Used by

A carrier technique that labels traffic so it can be steered across a provider backbone and kept separate per customer.

Demonstrates

WAN & Transport · Routing · Segmentation · Network Design

MPLS L3VPN is multi-tenant isolation at national scale. That is the same problem cloud providers and segmentation projects solve — the concept transfers straight into Zero Trust and cloud architecture conversations.

Used by

A way to split one physical switch into several separate networks that cannot see each other.

Demonstrates

Switching & VLANs · Segmentation · Network Troubleshooting

A VLAN is a security control that most people file under networking. If you have designed VLANs to keep systems apart, you have been doing segmentation — the foundation of Zero Trust — for years.

Used by

Software that chooses, in real time, which internet or private link each application should use between sites.

Demonstrates

WAN & Transport · Network Design · VPN & Encrypted Tunnels · Policy Enforcement

Used by

The services that hand out addresses and translate names into them — when they break, everything looks broken.

Demonstrates

Network Troubleshooting · Operating System Administration · Directory Services

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A summary of who talked to whom, for how long, and how much — without recording the contents.

Demonstrates

Packet Analysis · Continuous Monitoring · Log Analysis · Device Discovery & Profiling

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Records and displays the actual conversation between two machines, packet by packet.

Demonstrates

Packet Analysis · Network Troubleshooting · Forensic Analysis · Log Analysis

Packet analysis is the single skill shared by network engineering and security investigation. People who genuinely enjoy reading a capture almost always end up somewhere on the network security spectrum.

Used by

Scans a network to find what is there and which services each host is offering.

Demonstrates

Reconnaissance & Enumeration · Device Discovery & Profiling · Vulnerability Assessment · Network Troubleshooting

Nmap is the same act from two sides: an attacker mapping a target, and a defender finding the device nobody documented. Enjoying that discovery is a strong pull toward offensive security or asset visibility work.

Used by

Collects metrics from systems and shows you the graph that explains the outage.

Demonstrates

Observability & Reliability · Continuous Monitoring · Network Troubleshooting

Used by

A next-generation firewall — it filters traffic by application and user, not just by port number.

Demonstrates

Firewall Policy · Traffic Inspection · Intrusion Detection & Prevention · VPN & Encrypted Tunnels · Segmentation · Policy Enforcement

If you own the firewall, you own a security control — not a networking appliance. Policy design, inspection, VPN and segmentation are all cybersecurity engineering work with a networking label on the door.

Used by

A next-generation firewall platform built around identifying the application and user behind every flow.

Demonstrates

Firewall Policy · Traffic Inspection · Intrusion Detection & Prevention · VPN & Encrypted Tunnels · Segmentation · Zero Trust Enforcement

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Cisco’s firewall and intrusion prevention platform.

Demonstrates

Firewall Policy · Intrusion Detection & Prevention · Traffic Inspection · VPN & Encrypted Tunnels

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Cloud-delivered security that inspects and controls traffic wherever the user happens to be.

Demonstrates

Policy Enforcement · Zero Trust Enforcement · Traffic Inspection · Authorization & Least Privilege

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The machinery behind encrypted connections and the certificates that prove who you are talking to.

Demonstrates

VPN & Encrypted Tunnels · Authentication · Traffic Inspection

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A system that sees every device on the network, works out what each one is, and decides whether it is allowed to stay.

Demonstrates

Network Access Control · Device Discovery & Profiling · Endpoint Posture Assessment · Policy Enforcement · Segmentation · Continuous Monitoring · Zero Trust Enforcement

Forescout is one of the clearest examples of hidden security experience. Device visibility, profiling, posture checks and enforcement are textbook Zero Trust — if you have run it, you have been building Zero Trust before the term reached your job title.

Used by

Decides who and what may join the network, and what they get access to once they do.

Demonstrates

Network Access Control · Authentication · Authorization & Least Privilege · Endpoint Posture Assessment · Segmentation · Policy Enforcement · Zero Trust Enforcement

ISE sits exactly on the seam between networking, identity and security. Running it means you already work in all three — that combination is what a Zero Trust engineer is.

Used by

Open-source sensors that watch network traffic and record or alert on what they see.

Demonstrates

Intrusion Detection & Prevention · Packet Analysis · Detection Engineering · Log Analysis

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Agents on every machine that record behaviour and can isolate a device the moment it looks compromised.

Demonstrates

Incident Triage & Response · Log Analysis · Threat Hunting · Endpoint Posture Assessment · Forensic Analysis

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Collects logs from everything in one place and lets you search across all of it at once.

Demonstrates

SIEM Engineering · Log Analysis · Detection Engineering · Querying & Analysis · Continuous Monitoring

A SIEM is a data platform with adversaries attached. Splunk experience counts as both security operations and data engineering — which is exactly the profile detection engineering hires for.

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Cloud-native log and detection platforms — the same job as Splunk, priced and queried differently.

Demonstrates

SIEM Engineering · Log Analysis · Detection Engineering · Querying & Analysis

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Scans an estate for known weaknesses and produces the list nobody has time to fix all of.

Demonstrates

Vulnerability Assessment · Patch & Vulnerability Remediation · Risk & Compliance

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Tools for testing applications and systems by actually attacking them, under an agreed scope.

Demonstrates

Exploitation · Reconnaissance & Enumeration · Vulnerability Assessment

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The Microsoft system that holds every user, group and computer account in most organisations, and decides what each can open.

Demonstrates

Directory Services · Authentication · Authorization & Least Privilege · Identity Lifecycle · Privileged Access · Endpoint Management · Operating System Administration

Active Directory is the most attacked system in enterprise IT, which makes running it a security job whether or not anyone calls it one. AD skills convert directly into identity engineering, privileged access, and cloud IAM.

Used by

Microsoft’s cloud identity service — sign-in, MFA and the rules deciding when access is allowed.

Demonstrates

Authentication · Authorization & Least Privilege · Cloud Identity & Permissions · Identity Lifecycle · Zero Trust Enforcement

Used by

One login that unlocks many applications, with the rules for who gets which.

Demonstrates

Authentication · Authorization & Least Privilege · Identity Lifecycle · Zero Trust Enforcement

Used by

The operating system most servers, network devices and cloud workloads run on, driven from a command line.

Demonstrates

Operating System Administration · Hardening · Scripting · Patch & Vulnerability Remediation · Log Analysis

Linux is the shared substrate under cloud, containers, DevOps, network appliances and most security tooling. It is the highest-leverage single skill for moving between domains.

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The Microsoft server platform running file, directory, application and print services in most enterprises.

Demonstrates

Operating System Administration · Hardening · Patch & Vulnerability Remediation · Directory Services · Endpoint Management

Hardening, patching and Group Policy are security work with an operations job title. Windows Server experience is the standard on-ramp into endpoint security and identity engineering.

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Tools that configure, patch and control every laptop and phone in an organisation from one console.

Demonstrates

Endpoint Management · Patch & Vulnerability Remediation · Endpoint Posture Assessment · Policy Enforcement

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Software that runs many virtual servers on a smaller number of physical ones, and moves them around live.

Demonstrates

Virtualization · Operating System Administration · Storage · Network Design

vSphere is a private cloud. Compute, storage, virtual networking and resource pools are the same concepts AWS and Azure charge by the hour for — which makes it the shortest bridge from on-prem systems into cloud engineering.

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Alternative platforms for running virtual machines on your own hardware.

Demonstrates

Virtualization · Operating System Administration · Storage

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The largest cloud platform — servers, networks, storage and identity created through an API instead of a purchase order.

Demonstrates

Cloud Compute · Cloud Networking · Cloud Identity & Permissions · Infrastructure as Code · Containers & Orchestration

AWS is four disciplines wearing one name: compute, networking, identity and automation. Which of those you gravitate toward decides whether you become a cloud engineer, a cloud network engineer, or a cloud security engineer.

Used by

Microsoft’s cloud — deeply tied to Windows and Entra ID identity, which is why enterprises land there.

Demonstrates

Cloud Compute · Cloud Networking · Cloud Identity & Permissions · Infrastructure as Code · Virtualization

Azure is the natural next step for anyone who already runs Windows Server and Active Directory — the identity model you already know is the same one that governs the cloud tenant.

Used by

A system that runs containerised applications across many machines and restarts them when they fail.

Demonstrates

Containers & Orchestration · Cloud Compute · Observability & Reliability · Infrastructure as Code

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Packages an application with everything it needs so it runs identically anywhere.

Demonstrates

Containers & Orchestration · Cloud Compute · Build & Deployment Pipelines

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Describes cloud infrastructure in files so an entire environment can be created, reviewed and rebuilt.

Demonstrates

Infrastructure as Code · Cloud Compute · Configuration Management · API Integration

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Microsoft’s scripting language — the standard way to do something to a thousand Windows machines at once.

Demonstrates

Scripting · Operating System Administration · Endpoint Management · Directory Services · Log Analysis

PowerShell is the line between "I administer systems" and "I engineer systems". It is also the first language most incident responders reach for, because attackers reach for it too.

Used by

A general-purpose language used across automation, security tooling, data work and applications.

Demonstrates

Scripting · API Integration · Software Engineering · Data Pipelines · Detection Engineering

Python is the multiplier, not the career. Attached to networking it makes you a network automation engineer; attached to security it makes you a detection engineer; attached to infrastructure it makes you a platform engineer.

Used by

Applies a described configuration to many servers or network devices at once, repeatably.

Demonstrates

Configuration Management · Scripting · Infrastructure as Code

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Gluing command-line tools together into something that runs on its own.

Demonstrates

Scripting · Operating System Administration · Log Analysis

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Tracks every change to files, who made it and why — the backbone of reviewing infrastructure changes.

Demonstrates

Build & Deployment Pipelines · Infrastructure as Code · Software Engineering · Configuration Management

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The standard way one system asks another to do something, without a human in between.

Demonstrates

API Integration · Scripting · Software Engineering

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The language for asking a database a precise question.

Demonstrates

Querying & Analysis · Database Administration · Data Pipelines

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Turns query results into dashboards people who do not write queries can use.

Demonstrates

Querying & Analysis · Data Pipelines

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