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What is Cloud Computing

According to NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology)

a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models

Main characteristics of cloud

• On-demand self-service - Automatic provisioning of the underlying computing resources without human interaction

• Broader network access - Can be access with multiple platforms

• Resource pooling - Multiple customers are served within the same resources with security and privacy

• Rapid Elasticity - Acquire and dispose resources based on demand

• Measure Service - Bill only the used resources by the customers

Service Models

The different models describe who manages the different resources in the cloud. Both the cloud provider and customer shares a responsibility in the platform.

• IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service)

  • The cloud provider is responsible in provisioning the underlying virtualization, servers, storage and networking
  • The customer is responsible in maintaining applications, data, runtime, middleware and OS

• PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service)

  • The cloud provider is responsible in provisioning the underlying runtime, middleware, OS, virtualization, servers, storage and networking
  • The customer is responsible in maintaining applications and data

• SaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service)

  • The cloud provider is responsible in provisioning all the underlying resources
  • The customer access the application provided by the provider

Why deal with the cloud now?

Cloud is an exciting domain to pursue and compose of different professions (at least in my organization). Dealing with this now is a great investment to your career also it is fun to use a cloud infrastructure. These are the known professions that I've encountered in a pro-cloud organization.

• Cloud Architects - Obviously, this will be the first role which you will encounter in an organization both big or small. These people handles the tech standards and business side of things. They present the most cost-effective approach using the right Cloud Platform

• Cloud Developers - Develop and maintain applications using cloud technologies

• Cloud Administrators - Configure and maintain the hardware aspects using different cloud services

• Cloud Security Engineers - Builds and maintains security of a cloud platform

Application Modernization

Modernizing applications from on-premise to cloud is a trend right now and most of the organizations are starting to do it. A report from Konveyor showing the current state of modernization in different regions. It stated the six modernization strategies used by different organizations.

• Retire - Decommission applications that are not in used

• Retain - Leave critical applications since it may be refactored

• Rehost - Transfer on-premise applications to cloud with no significant code change

• Replatform - Use cloud migration strategies to enable cloud-specific components in your application

• Refactor - Modify the existing application code to take advantage the Microservice or Serverless architecture

• Repurchase - Use of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model

Fundamentals Certifications

There are different cloud certifications that you can take and start to learn with. Most of top certifications are from AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud. I took most of the certifications and the required trainings to easily pass them all.

• AWS Cloud Practitioner - AWS CCP Course

• Microsoft Azure - Azure Fundamentals Courses

• Google Cloud - GCP Digital Leader

• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure - OCI Foundations

What are you waiting for?

Join now the club of developers who enthusiastically learn and contribute in the cloud domain. Cloud computing is a promising field and it will be for the next upcoming years. Start your cloud journey now!