Learning Paths

Implementation Studio offers multiple learning paths depending on your goals and experience level.

Recommended Path: Complete Journey

For a comprehensive understanding of deployment patterns:

1. Lab 01: Standard Deployment - Establish baseline (GCP or AWS)
2. Lab 02: Air-Gapped Deployment - Learn offline deployment
3. Lab 03: Private Network Deployment - Private cluster patterns
4. Lab 04: Firewall-Restricted Deployment - Working with security constraints
5. Lab 05: The POC Sprint - Customer engagement patterns
6. Lab 06: Multi-Tenant Deployment - Isolation and resource management
7. Lab 07: Integration Patterns - External integrations
8. Lab 08: Handoff and Runbooks - Operational readiness
9. Lab 09: Troubleshooting Scenarios - Debugging skills

Time Estimate: 108-133 hours (~3-4 weeks at focused pace)

Fast Track: Core Constraints

If you need to understand constraints quickly:

1. Lab 02: Air-Gapped Deployment - Most differentiated content
2. Lab 03: Private Network Deployment - Private cluster patterns
3. Lab 04: Firewall-Restricted Deployment - Security constraints
4. Lab 09: Troubleshooting Scenarios - Debugging skills

Time Estimate: 40-50 hours (~1 week)

Solutions Engineer Path

Focused on customer engagement skills:

1. Lab 01: Standard Deployment - Baseline understanding (GCP or AWS)
2. Lab 05: The POC Sprint - POC frameworks and templates
3. Lab 06: Multi-Tenant Deployment - Customer isolation patterns
4. Lab 08: Handoff and Runbooks - Customer handoff process
5. Lab 09: Troubleshooting Scenarios - Customer support skills

Plus field guidance:

• SE Integration Guide
• POC Sprint templates
• Account Strategy
• Multi-Workstream Engagements
• Handoff and Runbooks

Time Estimate: 50-60 hours (~1.5 weeks)

Platform Engineer Path

Focused on infrastructure and operations:

1. Lab 01: Standard Deployment - Foundation (GCP or AWS)
2. Lab 03: Private Network Deployment - Network architecture
3. Lab 04: Firewall-Restricted Deployment - Security architecture
4. Lab 06: Multi-Tenant Deployment - Resource management
5. Lab 07: Integration Patterns - System integration
6. Lab 08: Handoff and Runbooks - Operational patterns
7. Lab 09: Troubleshooting Scenarios - Operations skills

Time Estimate: 70-85 hours (~2 weeks)

Cost-Conscious Path

All local, no cloud costs:

1. Lab 02: Air-Gapped Deployment - Fully local
2. Lab 05: The POC Sprint - Can use Kind
3. Lab 06: Multi-Tenant Deployment - Fully local with Kind
4. Lab 09: Troubleshooting Scenarios - Fully local

Time Estimate: 30-40 hours (~1 week) Cost: $0

Prerequisites by Lab

Lab 01: Standard Deployment

• GCP: GCP account with billing, gcloud CLI configured
• AWS: AWS account with permissions, aws CLI configured
• Both: Terraform, kubectl, Helm

Lab 02: Air-Gapped Deployment

• Docker, Kind
• Helm 3
• ~10GB disk space
• No cloud account needed

Lab 03: Private Network Deployment

• Same as Lab 01 (GCP or AWS)
• Understanding of Lab 01 baseline

Lab 04: Firewall-Restricted Deployment

• Same as Lab 01 (GCP or AWS)
• Understanding of network policies

Lab 05: The POC Sprint

• Kind (recommended, no cloud needed)
• GCP: Minimal GCP setup
• AWS: Minimal AWS setup

Lab 06: Multi-Tenant Deployment

• Kind (recommended, no cloud needed)
• GCP: GCP account
• AWS: AWS account
• Understanding of namespaces and RBAC

Lab 07: Integration Patterns

• GCP: GCP account (for Cloud SQL)
• AWS: AWS account (for RDS)
• Understanding of OAuth/OIDC basics

Lab 08: Handoff and Runbooks

• Kind, GCP, or AWS (cloud-agnostic)
• Understanding of monitoring basics

Lab 09: Troubleshooting Scenarios

• Kind cluster
• No cloud account needed

Customizing Your Path

Feel free to:

• Skip labs that don't apply to your role
• Focus on specific constraint types
• Use labs as reference material
• Adapt patterns to your use case

The labs are designed to be modular - use what's relevant to you.

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Choose the path that matches your goals and constraints!