Curriculum Roadmap¶

NetForge Labs is built in phases, from routing underlay foundations up to operating high-scale service provider, data center, and enterprise WAN fabrics in production. Each phase is a standalone course with executable containerlab topologies, single-source step configs, and automated verifiers.

Everything runs in containers on your own laptop. No cloud bills, no hardware, and 0% background idle load.

🏛️ Curriculum Path & Phase Dependencies¶

graph TD
    P0["Phase 0<br/>IGP Fundamentals"] ==> P1["Phase 1<br/>BGP Fundamentals<br/>& Policies"]
    P1 ==> P2["Phase 2<br/>BGP-DIA &<br/>Internet Edge"]
    P1 ==> P3["Phase 3<br/>MPLS & L3VPN"]
    P3 ==> P35["Phase 3.5<br/>Segment Routing"]
    P1 ==> P4["Phase 4<br/>VXLAN-EVPN Fabrics"]
    P4 ==> P5["Phase 5<br/>NetDevOps & CI/CD"]
    P1 ==> P6["Phase 6<br/>WAN Edge Multihoming"]
    P5 ==> P7["Phase 7<br/>Streaming Telemetry"]
    P4 ==> P8["Phase 8<br/>Network Security"]
    P0 ==> P9["Phase 9<br/>IPv6 Transition"]

    classDef done fill:#1b5e20,stroke:#81c784,color:#ffffff,stroke-width:2px,font-weight:bold;
    class P0,P1,P2,P3,P35,P4,P5,P6,P7,P8,P9 done;

📋 Course Status & Lab Matrix¶

Phase	Course	Focus & Core Architecture	Status
–	Foundations · Linux & Networking	Shell, text processing, SSH, systemd/logs, git, kernel networking	🟢 Available — prerequisite
0	IGP Fundamentals	OSPFv2/v3, IS-IS Wide Metrics (RFC 5305)	🟢 Available — reading track
1	BGP Fundamentals & Policies	eBGP, iBGP, Route Reflectors, 10-Step Path Selection	🟢 4 labs live
2	BGP-DIA & Internet Edge	Multi-homing, BGP Communities, RPKI, IXP Peering, BFD, CGNAT	🟢 4 labs live
3	MPLS & L3VPN	LDP, PHP (Label 3), L3VPN Options A/B/C, MPLS L2VPN VPWS/VPLS	🟢 5 labs live
3.5	Segment Routing	SR-MPLS, SRGB (16000–23999), Node SIDs, Ti-LFA Sub-50ms FRR, SR-PCE	🟢 3 labs live
4	VXLAN-EVPN Datacenter Fabrics	Pure L2VNI, Symmetric IRB, ESI All-Active, EVPN-VPWS/ELAN, DCI	🟢 5 labs live
5	Network Automation & CI/CD	Jinja2/YAML, PyATS, Batfish Static Analysis, gNMI, GitHub Actions CI/CD	🟢 5 labs live
6	Enterprise WAN Edge	Dual-ISP eBGP Multihoming, AS-PATH Prepending, BFD, RPKI ROV	🟢 4 labs live
7	Streaming Telemetry	gNMI gRPC Streams, OpenConfig YANG, Prometheus, Grafana	🟢 5 labs live
8	Network Security	Control Plane Policing (CoPP), VRF Microsegmentation, iACLs, MACsec	🟢 4 labs live
9	IPv6 Transition	IPv6 ND/SLAAC, BGP Unnumbered RFC 5549, 6PE/6VPE over MPLS, NAT64	🟢 4 labs live

🎯 Hyperscale System Design & Interview Preparation¶

Google & Hyperscale System Design Drill: Scenario-based drills on 5-Stage Clos topologies, eBGP vs. iBGP trade-offs, Ti-LFA micro-loop avoidance, EVPN ESI failure modes, and gNMI telemetry vs. SNMP.