Hello Azure: An Introduction to Cloud Computing
Sometime in January 2020, just before the covid19 pandemic I was inspired by some social media posts to learn about Cloud Computing. I was not so sure of how beneficial it is to my career as a software engineer, I needed to understand its relevance and application to I did a quick Google search and got a bit comfortable with it after hours of research.
I took an Introductory cloud course on Simplilearn and in a matter of weeks, I completed the course and I sought to get better. I was able to clearly explain Cloud computing and I had a nice understanding of core concepts a beginner should know.
Here is a short summary of what I learned
1. What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services — including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence — over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. You typically pay only for cloud services you use, helping you lower your operating costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently, and scale as your business needs change.
2. Benefits of Cloud
Cloud offers the following benefits as they are the main driving force for the adoption of cloud technologies by businesses seeking to scale faster;
- Optimized cost
- Scalability
- Speed
- Performance
- Security
- Reliability
3. Types of Cloud
Cloud Services come in different forms giving you the freedom to adopt the best model that suits your business needs;
- Public Cloud: These are owned by 3rd party cloud service providers which own and deliver their resources over the internet e.g. Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, etc.
- Private Cloud: A private cloud refers to computing resources exclusively owned and used by an organization either physically as an on-site datacenter and the infrastructure is maintained over a private network.
- Hybrid Cloud: This is a combination of both public and private clouds using a technology that allows data to be shared between them. This can be done to promote flexibility, security, and compliance.
4. Types of Cloud Services
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This is a cloud delivery model that allows you to rent IT infrastructure in the form of virtual machines, storage, networks, operating systems from a cloud provider on an operational payment basis (pay as you go basis).
- Platform as a Service (PaaS): This model provides an on-demand environment for developing, testing I’m managing software applications. It helped developers to quickly create and deploy applications without worrying about the underlying infrastructure needed and it cuts down development time.
- Software as a Service (SaaS): This is a model of delivering on-demand software applications over the Internet. Here the cloud provider hosts and manage the software application, infrastructure, maintenance, and upgrades, you just need to access the product over the internet.
Source: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-cloud-computing/#benefits
After research and advice from my mentor, I opted for the Azure as the Cloud Platform I would learn and started studying for the Azure Fundamentals Certification. I combined this with Linux skills using the free guide I found on GitHub https://www.github.com/madebygps — this contains free resources and guides for anyone seeking to start a career in cloud computing.
While studying for the Azure Fundamentals Certification, I was able to scale through the initial modules because I had prior knowledge of the basics. I soon got introduced to the Azure platform and clear examples of the cloud delivery models I learned about earlier, some of which are;
- Virtual Machines
- SQL server
- App service
- Logics apps
- Azure functions
- Etc
The first milestone was passing my Azure fundamentals certification exams, this opened my eyes to endless possibilities in the cloud space, and yeah I am still pushing to do better.
https://www.credly.com/earner/earned/badge/aeaf83b0-fb99-47dd-8a9b-6c852d671ebc
