Who Is This For?

This course is designed for developers, DevOps engineers, SREs, and platform engineers who work with web applications and want to deeply understand content delivery.

Whether you're debugging why an image won't update in production, designing a caching strategy for a new service, or trying to figure out why your CDN bill doubled last month—this course gives you the knowledge to solve these problems confidently.

After completing this course, you'll be able to:

• Debug caching issues in production — Read response headers and understand exactly why content is or isn't caching
• Configure caching correctly the first time — Set Cache-Control, ETag, Vary, and other headers with precision
• Design multi-tier caching architectures — Edge, shield, origin patterns for high-traffic applications
• Set up Nginx and Varnish — Production-ready caching proxy configurations
• Optimize for different content types — Static assets, APIs, video streaming, dynamic content
• Implement CDN security features — SSL/TLS, WAF rules, DDoS protection
• Speak intelligently in procurement discussions — Evaluate vendors, understand SLAs, ask the right questions
• Optimize CDN costs proactively — Understand pricing models and design for efficiency

You might be wondering why a technical course includes a module on procurement and cost optimization. Here's the reality:

This isn't about becoming a procurement specialist—it's about being the engineer who understands the full picture. You'll learn to:

• Evaluate CDN vendors based on technical requirements, not just marketing
• Understand commit-based vs. usage-based pricing and when each makes sense
• Read SLAs critically and know what guarantees actually matter
• Design architectures that are cost-efficient from day one
• Justify CDN investments to stakeholders in their language

This course assumes you have:

• Basic HTTP knowledge — You understand requests, responses, status codes (200, 404, 500), and methods (GET, POST)
• Command line comfort — You can navigate directories, run commands, and read output
• General web understanding — You know what browsers, servers, and DNS do at a high level

You don't need prior CDN experience—that's exactly what you're here to learn. If you're rusty on HTTP or DNS, we'll cover the essentials as we go.

For the hands-on labs in Module 6, you'll need:

• Docker Desktop — All exercises run in containers for consistent, reproducible environments
• A code editor — VS Code recommended, but any editor works
• curl or HTTPie — For making HTTP requests from the command line
• A modern browser — With developer tools for inspecting network requests

The full course includes 46 lessons across 8 modules. Expect to spend:

• Core content: 8-12 hours of reading and videos
• Hands-on labs: 4-6 hours of practical exercises
• Quizzes and certification: 2-3 hours

You can work through the material at your own pace. Most engineers complete the course in 2-4 weeks of part-time study.