Web Infrastructure and Protocols Roadmap — Fundamentals to Advanced

1. Prerequisites

1.1 Networking fundamentals

1.2 Linux and operating system fundamentals

1.3 Security fundamentals

1.4 Cloud and infrastructure fundamentals

1.5 Tooling fundamentals

2. Web Infrastructure Mental Model

2.1 Request lifecycle

2.2 Web infrastructure components

2.3 Client-side infrastructure concerns

2.4 Server-side infrastructure concerns

2.5 Edge infrastructure concerns

3. URI, URL, Origin, and Resource Identity

3.1 URI and URL basics

3.2 HTTP and HTTPS schemes

3.3 Origin model

3.4 Resource identity

4. DNS

4.1 DNS fundamentals

4.2 DNS record types

4.3 DNS resolution flow

4.4 DNS transport

4.5 DNS security

4.6 DNS operations

4.7 DNS troubleshooting

5. IP Networking for Web Infrastructure

5.1 IP fundamentals

5.2 IPv4

5.3 IPv6

5.4 Routing

5.5 Web-facing network design

5.6 Network troubleshooting

6. TCP, UDP, and Transport Behavior

6.1 TCP fundamentals

6.2 TCP states

6.3 TCP performance

6.4 UDP fundamentals

6.5 Socket-level concerns

6.6 Transport troubleshooting

7. TLS, PKI, and HTTPS

7.1 TLS fundamentals

7.2 TLS versions

7.3 Certificates

7.4 Certificate automation

7.5 HTTPS operations

7.6 TLS troubleshooting

8. HTTP Semantics

8.1 HTTP fundamentals

8.2 HTTP methods

8.3 HTTP status codes

8.4 HTTP headers

8.5 HTTP body and representation

8.6 HTTP content negotiation

8.7 HTTP conditional requests

9. HTTP Versions and Evolution

9.1 HTTP/0.9 and HTTP/1.0

9.2 HTTP/1.1

9.3 HTTP/2

9.4 HTTP/3

9.5 QUIC

9.6 Protocol negotiation

10. HTTP Caching

10.1 Cache fundamentals

10.2 Cache headers

10.3 Cache strategies

10.4 CDN caching

10.5 Cache troubleshooting

11. Cookies, Sessions, and Browser State

11.2 Session management

11.3 Browser storage

11.4 State security

12. Browser Networking and Security Boundaries

12.1 Browser networking stack

12.2 Same-origin policy

12.3 CORS

12.4 Fetch metadata

12.5 Cross-origin isolation

13. Web Security Headers and Browser Defenses

13.1 Transport security headers

13.2 Content Security Policy

13.3 Framing and embedding defenses

13.4 Content sniffing and referrer controls

13.5 Permissions and privacy headers

14. Web Authentication and Authorization Protocols

14.1 Authentication fundamentals

14.2 HTTP authentication

14.3 OAuth 2.x

14.4 OpenID Connect

14.5 SAML

14.6 WebAuthn and passkeys

14.7 Authorization models

15. Realtime and Bidirectional Protocols

15.1 Long polling

15.2 Server-Sent Events

15.3 WebSocket

15.4 WebRTC

15.5 WebTransport

15.6 Realtime infrastructure design

16. Proxies, Reverse Proxies, and Gateways

16.1 Proxy fundamentals

16.2 Reverse proxy responsibilities

16.3 Common reverse proxies

16.4 Proxy headers

16.5 API gateways

17. Load Balancing

17.1 Load balancing fundamentals

17.2 Load balancer layers

17.3 Load balancing algorithms

17.4 Session persistence

17.5 Load balancer operations

18. CDN and Edge Infrastructure

18.1 CDN fundamentals

18.2 Static asset delivery

18.3 Dynamic acceleration

18.4 Edge compute

18.5 CDN security

19. Web Servers and Application Infrastructure

19.1 Web server fundamentals

19.2 Common web servers

19.3 Application server patterns

19.4 Static hosting

19.5 Serverless web infrastructure

20. API Protocols and Data Exchange

20.1 REST over HTTP

20.2 GraphQL transport

20.3 gRPC

20.4 Webhooks

20.5 Data formats

20.6 API contracts

21. Email and Adjacent Web Protocols

21.1 Email transport

21.2 Email authentication

21.3 Email retrieval

21.4 Web push

22. Web Performance Infrastructure

22.1 Performance fundamentals

22.2 Core Web Vitals infrastructure impact

22.3 Resource delivery optimization

22.4 Network-level optimization

22.5 Load testing

23. Web Security Infrastructure

23.1 Common web risks

23.2 WAF

23.3 DDoS protection

23.4 Bot management

23.5 Security scanning

23.6 Incident response

24. Observability for Web Infrastructure

24.1 Logging

24.2 Metrics

24.3 Distributed tracing

24.4 Synthetic monitoring

24.5 Real user monitoring

24.6 Alerting

25. Deployment Infrastructure

25.1 Deployment models

25.2 Release strategies

25.3 Infrastructure as Code

25.4 CI/CD for web infrastructure

25.5 Configuration and secrets

26. Kubernetes and Cloud-Native Web Networking

26.1 Kubernetes web primitives

26.2 Kubernetes ingress

26.3 Gateway API

26.4 Service mesh

26.5 Cloud load balancing

27. Reliability Engineering for Web Infrastructure

27.1 Availability fundamentals

27.2 Resilience patterns

27.3 Multi-region architecture

27.4 Capacity planning

27.5 Incident management

28. Protocol and Infrastructure Troubleshooting

28.1 DNS troubleshooting checklist

28.2 TCP troubleshooting checklist

28.3 TLS troubleshooting checklist

28.4 HTTP troubleshooting checklist

28.5 CDN troubleshooting checklist

28.6 Load balancer troubleshooting checklist

29. Current Standards and Ecosystem Awareness

29.1 Core protocol standards

29.2 Browser platform awareness

29.3 Security standards and guidance

29.4 Infrastructure ecosystem

30. Learning Path

30.1 Phase 1 — Web networking basics

30.2 Phase 2 — HTTP and browser infrastructure

30.3 Phase 3 — Production web infrastructure

30.4 Phase 4 — Advanced protocols

30.5 Phase 5 — Security and reliability

30.6 Phase 6 — Cloud-native infrastructure

31. Practical Projects

31.1 Project 1 — DNS and TLS Lab

31.2 Project 2 — HTTP Server and Reverse Proxy

31.3 Project 3 — HTTP Caching Lab

31.4 Project 4 — Load Balancing Lab

31.5 Project 5 — CDN and Edge Security Lab

31.6 Project 6 — WebSocket and SSE Lab

31.7 Project 7 — OAuth and OIDC Lab

31.8 Project 8 — Kubernetes Web Ingress Lab

31.9 Project 9 — Observability Lab

31.10 Project 10 — Web Infrastructure Incident Drill

32. Competency Checklist

32.1 Junior web infrastructure competency

32.2 Mid-level web infrastructure competency

32.3 Senior web infrastructure competency

32.4 Advanced web infrastructure competency