The cloud has been known to be a mystery. But, we have moved ahead in time and we have managed to reveal the mysterious cloud and make it a part and parcel of our daily lives – whether an individual or a business. Cloud has emerged from being an enigma to the soul of the IT industry.
So, What are the Prerequisites to learn Cloud Computing?
This is the question that bothers most of the IT professionals who want to delve into the world of cloud. There are also several myths surrounding the requirements to become a cloud computing professional. In this article, while taking you through the skills required to learn cloud computing, we will also attempt to bust the false assumptions about the requirements.
The term Cloud Computing is an umbrella term and encompasses many different concepts of Information Technology. It basically today the areas of IT that involve software infrastructures, hardware infrastructures, virtualization technologies, data center facilities, and software engineering concepts.
Knowledge of Operating Systems
As Cloud Computing is a broad area, it is essential to know the basic concepts related to Operating Systems, like Windows, Linux, etc. (e.g. how they work and operate at a high level).
Learning to use Linux operating system is essential as most organizations that work with web applications and scalable environments use Linux as their preferred Operating System. Linux is also the main choice for using an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform i.e.the AWS platform. The best way to learn Linux is to start using it and going through the documentation and basic courses online.
Knowledge of Virtualization
Once you acquire a working knowledge of operating systems, the next thing to learn is Virtualization Technology. Virtualization plays a huge role in cloud computing.
Virtualization is a technique to the house and runs multiple operating systems (virtual machines) within a single physical machine. Each virtual machine has specific CPU, RAM, and disk space capacities and runs its own operating system.
Virtual machines share the same hardware and the same network equipment. They are just virtually separated from one another.
Knowledge of Networking
Networking is an essential element of AWS cloud computing as all operations in a cloud platform involve networking. To learn cloud computing, you should at least have the understanding of how IP addresses work and comprehend what public and private networks are.
Each cloud instance needs to be connected to the Internet. Mastering the concepts of networking can be a difficult task as it requires you to learn certain key skills that demand time to understand.
Understanding of the Difference Between Public and Private Cloud Computing
To become an AWS cloud computing professional, it is essential to understand the difference between Public Cloud Computing and Private Cloud Computing.
Public Cloud: A publicly accessible cloud infrastructure that allows you to store data, virtual machines, and other cloud resources. Public clouds can be used with a pay per use approach. It is like renting an infrastructure for a specific period of time.
Private Cloud: It is similar to the public cloud in terms of services like flexibility and scalability and self-service, however, it is dedicated to a single enterprise and cannot be accessed publicly. In other words, it refers to an organization’s own private data centre that has all the advantages of Cloud Computing but everything is housed within the company’s own infrastructure which is managed privately.
Coding skills (Good To Have)
Although it is not a prerequisite, it is good to have knowledge of coding as building applications for the cloud and deploying them into the AWS cloud requires programming knowledge.
However, it is not mandatory to have coding skills as most of the cloud computing platforms like Amazon Web Services, contain API sets to automate all the operations and orchestrate all the resources with the organization software. Moreover, cloud computing has several facets spanning across different roles and can be grasped by non-programmers as well.
Now you know the basic requirements to learn cloud computing, let’s clarify the false assumptions now.
It all depends on what particular service you want to learn or want to use AWS.
Let’s assume you are talking about AWS as a whole, if you will be learning or using AWS, it could be because of two reasons:
- You would want to use it to architect an AWS model for your company’s application meaning taking your application to the AWS Infrastructure.
- You want to learn because you want to make a career shift to AWS and maybe want to become an AWS Solution Architect, or AWS Certified Developer or some other AWS Certified something. You can learn about all the AWS Certifications in this blog.
Well for either, you have to first know about all the AWS Services, you can get started with this AWS Tutorial.
Now there are no prerequisites for learning AWS, you can get started from scratch.
Also, let me clear the on one thing, you don’t need a coding background to learn AWS. A lot of people have this misconception, so this is for you!
