Phase 3: Cloud Platform fundamentals
Author: GPS
How does this phase apply to Cloud?
Sometimes people are surprised to see that this phase isn't number 1, though it is the longest and for good reason. As a Cloud professional, you will live in a platform, or multiple. Everything you build, support, develop, etc, will be on a platform.
Here are some popular questions we get at this phase:
Which cloud to learn?:
How to break down this phase
I would suggest spending time on these two topics and this timeline:
| Order | Topic |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cloud Certification |
| 2 | Cloud Resume Challenge |
Of course feel free to spend as much time as you'd like, people have asked for a timeline and breakdown so I've added it.
Resources
| Cloud Platform | Title |
|---|---|
| AWS | AWS training and Certification |
| Azure | Microsoft Learn |
| GCP | Google Cloud training |
Regardless of which learning material you choose, it'll have some sort of demo/hands-on aspect to it. Do it. Don't just watch/read. This isn't a Netflix show you're consuming, this is learning time.
When you are first getting started with cloud, you'll be doing everything via the UI, and that is fine for getting started, however once you're in a job, you'll be using a CLI or Infrastructure as Code (you'll learn more about this in Phase 4) to manage your environments. My advice here is, for every exercise you do via the UI, look up the CLI command and do it that way too. By now you should be familiar with using a command line. (Which is a big reason Linux phase and programming comes before this one).
This is also a great time to introduce yourself to the official documentation, AWS, Azure or GCP
If there is something you don't understand about a service or command, your go to should be the documentation first.
Projects
We recommend your first cloud project to be the Cloud Resume Challenge. Once you're done with that, visit the Projects page for more!
| Platform | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| AWS | Cloud Resume Challenge | Build your resume with AWS services. |
| Azure | Azure Cloud Resume Challenge | Build your resume with Azure services. |
| GCP | GCP Cloud Resume | Build your resume with GCP services. |
Things you should be familiar with at the end of this phase
- An understanding of best practices for cloud infrastructure (reliability, performance efficiency, security, cost optimization, etc.)
- How to grant and revoke access and permissions to users and applications.
- How to setup billing alerts/alarms, budgets, and how to use the billing tools.
- How to use the object storage service and understanding of other storage options.
- How to deploy scalable virtual machines and an understanding of other compute services the platform offers.
- How to setup monitoring for virtual machines and an understanding of all monitoring services the platform offers.
- How networking works for virtual machines (Vnets/VPCs, subnets, route tables, public and private IP addresses, VPNs, gateways, etc.)
- How to create an API with the Functions as a Service offering your cloud platform has and an overall understanding of what the service is capable of.
- Web application hosting services your cloud platform has to offer and hands on experience with one of the services.
- Database services your cloud platform has to offer and hands on experience with one of them.
- How to use the CLI to create and manage cloud resources.
Certifications you might want to look into
We like cloud certifications, they give you a nice outline to follow. However we don't think you need to have every single certification out there. We recommend 1 or 2 certifications max, plus 2 hands-on projects that showcase all the skills in the guide.
We recommend you get an associate level certification.