Computer Networking by The New Boston

About this course

Reliable web apps and cloud services start with solid networking. This course helps you understand how devices communicate, how traffic moves across local and wide area networks, and why servers and clients behave the way they do on the internet. You will connect the dots between everyday actions like loading a website and the behind-the-scenes systems that make it possible, giving you the confidence to troubleshoot issues instead of guessing.

You will develop a clear mental model of networking fundamentals, from common network types and physical components to the logic that governs communication. By exploring protocols and the OSI model, you will learn how data is packaged, addressed, transported, and delivered. These foundations make it easier to reason about performance, reliability, and security in real environments, whether you are working on a small office setup or supporting globally distributed services.

As the course progresses, you will move from concepts into practical server-focused skills aligned with cloud computing and web servers. You will see how to create and access a cloud server securely, why SSH is essential, and how choices like user permissions and port configuration affect your risk exposure. You will also gain hands-on awareness of firewalls and rule-based filtering, which are key for protecting services while keeping systems usable.

To round out the real-world perspective, the course introduces the building blocks of a web stack and common administration workflows: configuring a web server, enabling database access tools responsibly, and transferring files securely with modern protocols. Along the way, you will strengthen core knowledge of IP addressing, subnetting, DHCP, DNS, routing decisions, and routing tables—topics that routinely show up in technical interviews and on-the-job troubleshooting. By the end, you will be able to speak the language of networking and apply it to cloud servers and web hosting with practical confidence.