I'm a technology professional in training building a practical foundation in networking, Linux, systems administration, and infrastructure engineering.

I enjoy understanding how infrastructure works beneath the surface: how networks and systems communicate, how services remain available, how failures are detected and recovered from, and how infrastructure can be monitored, secured, automated, and operated reliably.

My current engineering direction is focused on progressing from strong foundations in networking and Linux into cloud infrastructure, infrastructure automation, high availability, observability, and reliable systems.

I believe in learning by building:

Learn • Build • Break • Troubleshoot • Understand • Document • Share

This GitHub documents my progression through practical infrastructure engineering projects and technical laboratories.

You'll find work involving:

• Computer networking
• Linux and systems administration
• Infrastructure engineering
• High availability
• Infrastructure monitoring and observability
• Network and infrastructure security
• Python and Bash automation
• APIs and databases
• Cloud infrastructure
• Infrastructure as Code
• Containers and infrastructure tooling
• Troubleshooting and failure analysis
• Technical documentation

My goal is not simply to demonstrate that I have used a technology.

I want my repositories to demonstrate what I can build, operate, troubleshoot, secure, automate, and understand.

Networking is one of my core technical foundations.

I'm developing practical knowledge in:

• TCP/IP and Ethernet
• IPv4 and IPv6
• Subnetting and VLSM
• Switching and routing
• VLANs and inter-VLAN routing
• DHCP and DNS
• Static and dynamic routing
• Network troubleshooting
• Network security
• High-availability networking

Tools I use include Cisco Packet Tracer, GNS3, VyOS, and Wireshark.

My goal is to understand networks beyond configuration: how they operate, how they fail, how they recover, and how problems can be systematically diagnosed.

Linux and systems administration form another important foundation of my infrastructure engineering development.

I'm building practical experience with:

• Linux administration
• Filesystems
• Users and permissions
• Processes and services
• Networking
• Shell scripting
• Server administration
• Virtualization
• Containers
• System troubleshooting
• Infrastructure operations

The objective is to understand systems at the operating-system and infrastructure level rather than simply memorizing commands.

Cloud is the next major stage of my infrastructure engineering development.

I'm building toward practical knowledge of:

• Cloud networking
• Virtual networks and subnets
• Routing and connectivity
• Compute infrastructure
• Identity and access management
• Storage
• Load balancing
• Security
• High availability
• Monitoring
• Infrastructure deployment and operations

My approach is to carry the networking and systems principles I develop into cloud environments and understand how traditional infrastructure concepts translate into services such as AWS.

My primary engineering direction is infrastructure engineering.

I'm interested in building and operating infrastructure that is:

• Reliable
• Observable
• Available
• Fault-tolerant
• Secure
• Automatable
• Maintainable

Areas I'm exploring include:

• Infrastructure monitoring
• High availability
• Failure detection and recovery
• Network infrastructure
• Cloud infrastructure
• Infrastructure automation
• Infrastructure as Code
• Observability
• Service reliability
• Disaster recovery
• Infrastructure troubleshooting

Software engineering and DevOps practices are supporting skills that I use to solve infrastructure problems.

I'm developing practical skills in:

• Python
• Bash
• SQL
• REST APIs
• Flask
• Git and GitHub
• Databases
• Docker
• CI/CD
• Infrastructure as Code
• Cloud technologies
• Automation
• Monitoring and observability

I use software to automate infrastructure, interact with systems, collect information, build operational tools, and solve repetitive engineering problems.

The objective is not to build software for its own sake, but to use software effectively as part of infrastructure engineering.

I study cybersecurity alongside networking, Linux, and infrastructure.

My current areas include:

• Security fundamentals
• Network security
• Threats and vulnerabilities
• Authentication and access control
• Defensive security
• Security monitoring
• Infrastructure security

My approach is to understand the systems and networks first, then understand how they can be attacked, secured, monitored, and defended.

SysGuard is my final-year project focused on high-availability network infrastructure, monitoring, failure detection, recovery, event logging, and observability.

The project combines a GNS3-based network environment with a lightweight monitoring system to observe infrastructure availability, detect failures, record events, and evaluate recovery behaviour.

Current technologies and concepts include:

GNS3 • VyOS • VRRP • Python • SNMP • SQLite • Monitoring • High Availability

Status: In Development

A long-term practical infrastructure engineering portfolio documenting my progression through networking, Linux, cloud infrastructure, automation, high availability, observability, and related infrastructure technologies.

The objective is to build increasingly realistic projects that demonstrate the ability to design, implement, troubleshoot, secure, document, and operate infrastructure.

I want my repositories to tell the story behind the infrastructure, not just contain configuration files.

Where appropriate, projects document:

Problem → Requirements → Architecture → Implementation → Testing → Failure → Troubleshooting → Security → Results → Lessons Learned

I'm also gradually incorporating architecture diagrams, network topologies, visual documentation, screenshots, tables, and Mermaid diagrams to make technical work easier to understand.

My long-term goal is to become a Cloud Infrastructure Engineer capable of designing, deploying, securing, automating, monitoring, and troubleshooting reliable infrastructure across network, Linux, and cloud environments.

Beyond infrastructure engineering, I'm interested in the longer-term intersection of infrastructure, automation, data, edge computing, IoT, and agriculture.

Eventually, I want to explore how reliable technology infrastructure can be applied to practical problems in agricultural and rural environments.

For now, the priority is simple:

Build strong foundations. Build real things. Understand how they work.

LinkedIn: Gerrad Chibuye