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Foundation course

System Administration

From networking basics to Windows/Linux servers, monitoring, backup, automation, containerization, and cloud — the mandatory foundation for every other track (DevOps, Cybersecurity, Network Engineering).

100 hoursDuration

11 modules+ final project

BeginnerLevel

Offline / OnlineFormat

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Prerequisite: none — the course starts from zero. Basic computer literacy is enough.

Curriculum

11 modules — from networking to the cloud

Every module is reinforced with a lab exercise and a mini-project.

OSI and TCP/IP models, Ethernet, MAC/IP addressing
IPv4 subnetting, CIDR, DNS and DHCP
Switching: VLAN, trunking, STP, EtherChannel
Routing basics, NAT, ACL, firewall/VPN/proxy
Practice: Cisco Packet Tracer / GNS3 — a 3-department office network project

Hypervisor types: Type 1 (bare-metal) vs Type 2 (hosted)
Proxmox VE — creating VMs/LXC, storage (LVM-Thin, ZFS), networking, backup/snapshot
Building a cluster and live migration, HA basics
Comparative overview of VMware ESXi and Hyper-V
Project: 3 VMs on Proxmox (Linux, Windows, monitoring) + VLAN + automated backup

Active Directory: users, OUs, groups, second Domain Controller, FSMO
DHCP, DNS, NAT, NTP, Windows Firewall, IIS, WSUS
File/print server, Storage (iSCSI, DFS), Shadow Copies
Group Policy (GPO): password policy, restrictions, software deployment
PowerShell basics, Windows Server Backup, Event Viewer
44 hours / 22 lessons

Ubuntu Server LTS / AlmaLinux — terminal, filesystem (FHS), vim/nano
Users, permissions (chmod/chown), package managers (apt/dnf)
Network services: SSH, DNS (bind9), DHCP, Web (Apache/Nginx), DB (MySQL), NFS/Samba
Disk management (LVM, RAID), systemd, cron, log management
Firewall (ufw/firewalld), SSH hardening, Fail2ban, bash scripting
Final project: LAMP/LEMP stack + firewall + automated backup
56 hours / 28 lessons

Zabbix — server/agent, host/item/trigger, alerting (Telegram bot), SNMP monitoring
Prometheus + Grafana — Node Exporter, PromQL, dashboards and alerting
ELK Stack and a centralized log server, log retention policy
Final project: real-time Zabbix + Grafana dashboard, centralizing logs with ELK

CIA triad, threat types (malware, phishing, DDoS)
Firewall/Proxy — pfSense, Kerio Control, Fortigate; IDS/IPS (Snort/Suricata)
VPN (site-to-site, remote access), server hardening, patch management
MFA, least privilege, Wazuh SIEM basics, incident response
Intro to pentesting: Kali Linux, Nmap, Nessus/OpenVAS

The 3-2-1 rule, Full/Incremental/Differential backup
Veeam Backup & Replication, BorgBackup (Linux), Proxmox Backup Server
Windows Server Backup — System State, Bare Metal Recovery
DR planning: RTO/RPO, runbooks, offsite/cloud backup (rclone), DR testing

Git — version control, GitHub/GitLab
PowerShell and Bash scripting, Python (automation + REST API)
Ansible — playbooks, roles, Galaxy; Terraform basics (IaC)
Intro to CI/CD — GitLab CI pipelines
Project: deploying to multiple servers automatically via an Ansible playbook

Docker: images/containers, Dockerfile, Docker Compose
Volumes/Networking, Docker Registry, security (Trivy scanning)
Kubernetes basics: Minikube, kubectl, Deployment/Service
Scaling, ConfigMap/Secret, intro to Ingress and Helm

MySQL / PostgreSQL installation, users and privileges (GRANT/REVOKE)
Backup/restore (mysqldump, pg_dump), Master/Slave replication
MS SQL Server and SSMS, backup strategies
Indexing, performance and security, Point-in-Time Recovery

IaaS / PaaS / SaaS, on-premise vs cloud
AWS — EC2, S3, VPC, Security Groups, IAM (least privilege, MFA)
Azure — Virtual Machines, Storage, Azure AD; intro to Yandex Cloud
Hybrid cloud, migration basics, cost management (billing alerts)

Bonus

Additional topics — based on 2026 market demand

Topics added to close gaps identified through job-vacancy requirement analysis.

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Scripting — deeper dive

PowerShell remoting, AD automation; Python (paramiko, requests, log analysis).

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Cloud — certification track

Azure AZ-104 track (Entra ID, Hybrid AD), Microsoft 365 administration, AWS SAA.

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Corporate email

Exchange Online/M365 mailbox management, SPF/DKIM/DMARC, anti-spam.

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Enterprise virtualization

VMware vCenter/HA/DRS, Hyper-V SCVMM and failover clustering, SAN/iSCSI/FC.

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IaC & DevOps skills

Ansible (roles, vault), Terraform basics, Git-based configuration management.

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Workflow skills

Jira/ServiceNow/GLPI, ITIL basics, runbooks and RCA reports, technical English (B1+).

🎓 Final project

Build real corporate infrastructure

A complete corporate infrastructure: Proxmox + Windows Server + Linux + Docker; monitoring — Zabbix + Grafana + Alerts; backup — PBS + BorgBackup + a DR Plan; automation — Ansible Playbooks. Wraps up with a certificate and portfolio preparation.

Certifications

Recommended certifications

In priority order — from foundation to senior track.

1 CompTIA Network+ / Security+ 2 RHCSA (Linux) 3 AZ-104 (Azure Administrator) 4 VCP / AZ-800 (Enterprise)

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