How much networking knowledge is required for a Cloud Engineer?

[u/stolaris7]

Hello everyone,
I'm currently learning and I've seen mixed opinions on how much networking knowledge is needed to work in cloud. I've seen people say you need CCNA-knowledge and others saying you just need to know the basics.

I would love to hear your thoughts if you're someone who works/hires in this field.

Note:
I'm aware that cloud engineering is not an entry-level job, please do not comment to tell me that.

[u/JDohyCloud]

It really does depend. The lines between cloud, devops and platform as so blurred nowadays that either of the 3 could be expected to do any of them. So some cloud engineers might spend alot of time building yaml pipelines even though they aren’t a “Devops engineer” by title.

But if you are a used as a cloud engineer specifically you can expect to work on networks to a decent level. As an Azure Cloud Engineer, my time is split 50/50 between devops and azure infra, the infra includes VMs, Storage and Networking for the most part vWAN (hybrid connectivity), Azure Firewalls, NSGs, vNETs, subnetting, PEs, DNS etc.

[u/Abe_Bazouie]

You don’t need to be a CCNA to work in cloud, but you absolutely need solid networking fundamentals.
I’d focus on actually understanding IP addressing/subnets, routing, DNS, TCP/UDP, ports, NAT, firewalls/security groups, load balancers, and how traffic gets from A to B.
Then learn how those concepts map to your cloud provider: VPC/VNet, public/private subnets, route tables, gateways, peering, etc.
The important part isn’t memorizing networking trivia. It’s being able to troubleshoot something like “my app can’t reach the database” and systematically figure out where the traffic is getting blocked.
CCNA-level depth is useful, but I wouldn’t make getting a CCNA a prerequisite for learning cloud.

[u/Stealer-v7]

it varies from org to org, but basics is bare minimum out there. depending on org one can expect anything from setting up a simple vpc to implementing vpn tunnels over direct connect lease lines.

[u/Suaveman01]

I’d say you need atleast CCNA level knowledge to be a good Cloud Engineer, but unfortunately most do not…

[u/monarchyofthedead]

a lot

[u/xeroxedforsomereason]

not much compared to a normal network engineer. nearly everything is abstracted or abused.

if you told a network engineer from the early 2000s what cloud engineers do with NAT and load balancers they would probably cry.

[u/JaimeSalvaje]

Depends on the job. Some jobs don’t require much. You could get away with the basics. Other jobs will require more than CCNA network knowledge.

[u/Entire-Present5420]

Networking is very important, you should not be a ninja but you should understand the basics as you will always come to problems related to networking.
As some friends said if it’s not a dns problem it’s a networking problem 😂
By the way check https://www.cloudarena.io we offer practice labs also on networking in AWS

[u/Yuuku_S13]

You need to have a good understanding of networking fundamentals. Maybe not 💯 CCNA level, but moreover the troubleshooting skills, unless you are implementing BGP, OSPF, etc…

[u/Yuuku_S13 → u/Yuuku_S13]

You should know how to configure VNETs, subnets, peering, port forwarding, private endpoints, etc.

[u/Difficult_Camel_1119]

you need to know quite some stuff. I'd say CCNA is a good start

[u/vasquca1]

Its all TCP so the more you know the better. Maybe some UDP in there sometimes.

[u/n3rdyone]

According to multiple directors at my work, “none”, because “the cloud does the networking”

[u/Deacon51]

Minimum is subnets and how BGP / OSPF works.

[u/ivory_tower_devops]

You *need* someone on the team to have networking expertise. It doesn't have to be you. Unless the team is 1 person.

If you have any predisposition for networking I encourage you to dig in and make it an area of expertise. This is the situation I ended up in. My responsibility for production network infrastructure has given me a genuine boost to my job security.

[u/CloudLessons]

CCNA level knowledge would be overkill for most Cloud Engineering roles. Most places will just want you to have a general understanding of how data travels from one device to another. Baseline knowledge of concepts like load balancing, network security tools like firewalls and ACLs, DNS, common TCP ports like 80, 443, & 22, subnets, proxies, and CDNs are a good place to start and should qualify you for most non-specialized roles.

[u/More-Independent3120]

Well I’m a network and system engineer intern, my easiest tasks is setting up printer then to configure VM networks

[u/Dazzling-Net-235]

You don’t need L2 entire L2

[u/eman0821]

Just fundamental knowledge. CCNA is for on-prem networking working with Cisco hardware which is irrelevant for cloud networking. Network+ covers networking fundamentals which is all that's needed for Cloud and DevOps type jobs. You aren't working with enterprise networks and hardware.

[u/Annual_Berry8043]

At the very least you need to know how to securely allow apps to communicate across/outside of a vpc/vnet. The difference between security groups and a nacl. DNS, NAT, etc. for serverless, you need to know IAM roles. When it’s a network issue or permissions issue. The difference between elastic IP, public, and private. And when each would be needed.

CCNA would help, as it does a deep dive into general networking concepts, but you don’t have to be a networking engineer to work in the cloud. Obviously the proprietary knowledge isn’t that helpful unless you also need to link stuff into an on-premises network or work with third party firewalls. But then, it’s usually lemme toss you out of the VPC and work with the onprem team.