E028 Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure and Orchestration carries the banner number ITCL 4200 and is worth 4 competency units. It is about designing, implementing and managing environments that span four places at once: existing on premises infrastructure, private cloud, public cloud and edge computing. E028 and ITCL 4200 are one requirement. This is an upper level course and it behaves like one, because integration problems have no clean answers and the assessment is really testing whether you can defend the compromise you chose.
Placement is the decision everything else follows from
In a hybrid environment the central question about any workload is where it should run, and the answer comes from a small set of forces pulling in different directions. Data gravity keeps a workload near the data it processes. Latency keeps interactive components near their users. Regulation can pin data to a location. Existing investment argues for the equipment already paid for. Elasticity argues for public cloud. Edge exists because sometimes the round trip to anywhere central is too slow or too fragile.
A good placement argument names the force that decided each case. Writing that recommends moving everything to public cloud, or keeping everything on premises, has usually not engaged with the scenario, since real hybrid environments exist precisely because different workloads answer the question differently.
Connectivity is where hybrid designs succeed or fail in practice. Environments have to reach each other privately and reliably, addressing has to be planned so ranges do not collide, name resolution has to work in every direction, and the path between environments becomes a dependency that carries its own failure modes. Designs that show components in two clouds without saying how they talk have skipped the hardest part.
Identity across environments is the second integration problem, and it is the one that quietly consumes projects. Users, service accounts and workloads all need to authenticate across boundaries, and the choice between extending an existing directory, federating, or running separate identity per environment shapes everything about operations afterward.
Orchestration is what makes the whole thing manageable rather than heroic. Declaring the desired state, applying it consistently across environments and letting automation reconcile drift is the practice that keeps a hybrid estate from becoming a set of unique snowflakes nobody dares touch. Results at WGU are Competent or Not Competent rather than letter grades, no ordinary grade point average exists, and these 4 competency units sit inside a six month term at a flat rate.
Turning scored aspects into a hybrid design document plan
If your version of E028 is assessed by a performance assessment, the aspects your evaluator scores are the structure, and an upper level integration course tends to produce aspects that each demand a defended decision rather than a description. WGU requires a score of 2 in each aspect for a task to pass and judges each aspect on its own, so a compelling placement argument will not carry a thin orchestration section.
Budget the words before drafting. Start from a rubric carrying seven scored aspects with a target near 2,450 words. Reserve 200 words for the organization, its existing estate and its constraints, and 150 for the close, leaving 2,100. Three aspects carry the design weight, typically workload placement, connectivity and orchestration, and they take 420 words each for 1,260, because each needs the requirement, the option chosen, the option rejected and the failure behavior. The four remaining aspects, usually covering identity, edge, management and cost or governance, take 210 each for 840. Adding 1,260 to 840 gives 2,100 exactly.
Write placement decisions in a table with one row per workload and columns for the environment chosen and the deciding force. That single table answers a large part of the most heavily weighted aspect and makes the rest of the document easier to write, because every later section can refer to it.
Reserve budget for what happens when the link between environments fails. It is the most predictable hybrid failure and the most commonly unaddressed one, and a paragraph naming which workloads keep working, which degrade and which stop is worth several paragraphs of design praise.
Shape for a hybrid infrastructure design document
E028 deliverables usually design an environment spanning several locations. These proportions carry that document.
| Section | What belongs there | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Estate and constraints | What exists now, what is committed, and what regulation or contract fixes in place. | 11 percent |
| Workload placement | Each workload, where it runs, and the force that decided it. | 20 percent |
| Connectivity | How environments reach each other, addressing, name resolution and the path's failure modes. | 17 percent |
| Identity integration | How authentication works across boundaries, for people and for workloads. | 13 percent |
| Edge components | What runs at the edge, why it cannot run centrally, and how it is updated and secured. | 12 percent |
| Orchestration | How desired state is declared, applied and reconciled across all environments. | 17 percent |
| Operations and close | Monitoring across boundaries, and what happens when the link between them fails. | 10 percent |
Evidence for integration decisions
Integration writing is judged on whether the design would survive contact with the constraints. That makes the scenario your primary source: every constraint you honor should be traceable to something the scenario said, and every constraint you invent weakens the argument. Where the scenario is silent, state the assumption explicitly and say how a different answer would change the design.
For platform capabilities, cite provider and vendor documentation with dates, because connectivity options, identity integrations and orchestration features change frequently. For architectural practice, cite published guidance and reference architectures rather than asserting that an approach is standard. For anything about regulation or data location, cite the instrument or the official guidance rather than a summary.
Show cost as structure rather than as price. Hybrid designs have a characteristic cost shape: committed capital on premises, consumption based spend in public cloud, and data transfer charges that surprise people because they are invisible until traffic patterns settle. Describing that shape, and naming which of your placement decisions drives which part of it, is more useful and more durable than a table of rates that expires.
Use the citation style your task specifies and cite at the point of the claim, including inside tables. Label every diagram and refer to it by name, keeping the reasoning in prose because a diagram cannot show the alternative you rejected.
What earns Competent, and what comes back
Competent hybrid work decides and defends. Every workload has a location and a reason. Environments are connected in a way that is specified rather than assumed. Identity spans the boundary by a named mechanism. Orchestration covers all environments rather than the cloud portion only. And the design states what happens when the connection between environments is lost.
Returns cluster in six places. Placement is asserted without a deciding force, so the heaviest aspect has no reasoning behind it. Connectivity is drawn but not described, leaving addressing and resolution unaddressed. Identity is handled separately per environment with no account of the operational cost. Edge is mentioned in the introduction and never designed. Orchestration is named as a tool rather than as a practice covering the estate. Or the document never asks what happens when the link fails, which is the failure that defines hybrid.
A check before submitting: cover the diagram and read the document. If a reader could rebuild the placement table and the connectivity story from prose alone, the design is genuinely written down. If the diagram is carrying the argument, several aspects have nothing to score.
Revising a performance assessment and sending it back costs nothing in grade terms at WGU, so submit once every aspect has a genuine answer. If your section carries an objective assessment as well, that exam is proctored and our boundary is absolute: preparation only, meaning design pattern drills, integration scenarios and a candid read of your preassessment result. We do not sit assessments, we contribute nothing while one is under way, and portal credentials are never requested or stored by us.
Two clouds drawn, integration undefined?
Send the E028 rubric and your estate. We rebuild the document with a placement table, a specified connectivity story and a link failure plan.
Six mistakes that cost time in E028
- Placement without a deciding force. Name what decided each workload: data gravity, latency, regulation, sunk investment or elasticity.
- Connectivity shown, not specified. Addressing, private paths and name resolution in both directions, or the design is a picture.
- Separate identity per environment. If you choose it, say what it costs operationally. If you federate, say what trusts what.
- Edge as a mention. Say what runs there, why it cannot run centrally, and how it is updated and secured.
- Orchestration as a tool name. It is a practice: declared state, consistent application, drift reconciled across every environment.
- No link failure plan. Say which workloads keep running, which degrade and which stop when environments cannot reach each other.
Three questions students ask about E028
How do I decide what stays on premises?
How much detail does the edge section need?
Is E028 the same course as ITCL 4200?
Where E028 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 4 current WGU programs. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.