How to get Started in the Cloud: Skills
Cloud adoption is growing fast across all types of organizations: Small, Medium, Large. One thing hampering this growth is a lack of competent Cloud skills. I say competent because it’s not just certifications, or going through some labs, or throwing together an architecture diagram, but real hands-on skills. Here’s a proven way to bridge that gap, and fast! It’s also the path I followed, and my skills were elevated within months.
1. Develop a curiosity for the cloud.
Be very open minded about the cloud and drop any judgements, attitudes, schools of thought etc. The reason for this is obvious: it’s hard to learn with a closed mind. Most importantly, you’ll realize that the Cloud is a huge playground that’ll accommodate the way you mould solutions today, and even do it faster.
2. Signup for an account
Whether it’s Azure, AWS or GCP, signup for an account as if you are ready to build the next big thing on the Cloud. AWS offers some resources for free for the first year you have an account with them, Azure has credits for MSDN subscribers, GCP offers $300 credit for the first 12 months. Take advantage of this. In addition, set aside a small budget every month, why? Not all resources are free, for instance, larger instances on AWS don’t apply to the free tier. Think of this as college tuition, and when you do, you’ll realize it’s a worthy investment, and likely cheaper than college.
3. Create a goal in mind
Visualize running a workload in the Cloud and write it down as a goal. This will be your drive, there’s only but a short-lived excitement with “Hello World” tutorials. The best way would be to extend your current experiences, projects and challenges to the Cloud. If nothing comes to mind, here are a few examples:
- Deploy an open source product in the Cloud using containers.
- Move data from on prem to the Cloud for analysis/reporting
- Backup artifacts to the cloud
- Create integration workflows in the cloud
- Stream desktop applications from the cloud and so on.
4. Enroll in a course
There are numerous platforms that offer courses on the cloud. The most popular ones are Udemy, A Cloud Guru and Linux Academy. Udemy has one-off courses you can buy without subscriptions and I highly recommend this to start with. Later on, consider signing up with A Cloud Guru or Linux Academy, as immersing yourself in these platforms will give you both formal and informal takes on the Cloud, latest happenings, plus other nuances. Consider this as tuition as well, and distance yourself from thinking that free resources will get you through, some knowledge structure is needed.
5. Apply anything new you learn immediately
With anything you learn, don’t just leave it at Wow That’s Cool! We tend to overestimate how much we can recall, especially at the moment of discovery. You want to try it for yourself and you’ll sure learn something else on the process, re-enforcing what’s been learned. Remember the goal we set in point #3? Build towards your goal using these new bits of knowledge, doesn’t have to be perfect or ideal, but let these experiences shape your ideas and views about the services in the Cloud.
You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over — Richard Branson
6. Automate as you learn
If you want to put your cloud skills into good use, automate everything as you go. There’s multiple benefits to this:
- First, you only need to keep a repo of automation scripts and workflows, not the resources that you built. Why? Provisioned resources will cost you a fortune if you let them linger around long enough. But with automation, recreate as you go.
- Secondly and most importantly, just about any implementation of the Cloud requires automation. The console is great and all, and you’ll use it, but the gold is in leveraging the APIs.
7. Take advantage of the Introductory Discounts
This is more specific to AWS where the first year you get to provision some resources for free. Exhaust this path to save you money. For startup/personal projects, small instances and low capacity volumes will do just fine. This will embolden you to go deeper knowing you are not having to pay the whole bill by yourself. More info here: https://aws.amazon.com/free/
8. Get on a Certification Path
Certification is not required for you to be functional in the cloud but I highly recommend for a couple of reasons:
- You’ll understand the Cloud provider’s intent on how a service was meant to be consumed, limits per account/geographical area, best practices, security responsibilities and so on.
- You’ll also gain recognition and be eligible to join online communities where vibrant discussions thrive, the cloud changes a lot and this forums are where you’ll have a brush with the latest, and nuances in the cloud.
- This will improve your overall confidence in your knowledge and in the solutions you build.
9. Be active in learning platforms and online forums
Go through questions people are asking on these forums, and help answer them when you can. Now, I know you are thinking: But I’m still in the learning phase! But yes, you can contribute something positive as you learn, as long as you are actively experimenting in the cloud. These forums will likely answer most of your questions before you ask them, and they also serve as an extra-curricular material that you’ll find handy for when you take the certification exams.
10. Introduce the Knowledge You’ve Gained to Your Environment
Showcase the benefits (and there’ll be many) over current processes/platforms that you are working with. Share this with your colleagues, leadership, business partners, solution partners and other relevant persons in your ecosystem. Chances are nobody has given it much thought, and your perspective may be a game changer. This drives awareness and adoption and gives you a chance to worker on larger collaborative projects that you can help steer. You may also discover that your organization may have set aside a budget for Cloud explorations, hence you may not have to foot the bill by yourself.
Thanks for reading! Make it a great day (or evening😄)!
