New to cloud computing, this a good idea?

There is a big push in my org to move to cloud. Although I am not currently part of the spin up team they have chosen to use amazon AWS. I have to admit that I know very little about cloud and was wondering what I could do or what cert to get to gain the necessary knowledge to be helpful and useful to my org.

I was thinking AWS architect associate and then professional as far as certifications.

Anyone have any ideas on how to get spun up on cloud in a few months?

Also, do you think the associate architect cert from AWS might be too much from someone knowing very little about cloud?

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thomas_

LinuxAcademy has AWS training available for some of the AWS certs. Also, you can sign up for AWS and get access to a free tier for a year which will allow you to play around with it.

alias454

Udemy has some AWS video courses too. It won't be time wasted since even if your current company doesn't care about it, some other company will.

Mike7

5502george wrote: »

Anyone have any ideas on how to get spun up on cloud in a few months?

You can sign up for the AWS Free Tier at https://aws.amazon.com/free/. Get your hands dirty; Amazon has ample documentation on the site for you to get started.
For training, Amazon has a comprehensive list of training resource at https://aws.amazon.com/training/course-descriptions/
AWS Re:Invent will be as Las Vegas this October (https://reinvent.awsevents.com/). Seems to be sold out; you can still watch the live streams online.

5502george wrote: »

Also, do you think the associate architect cert from AWS might be too much from someone knowing very little about cloud?

Experience AWS first. Once you are comfortable, try the sample questions at AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate

devils_haircut

alias454 wrote: »

Udemy has some AWS video courses too.

They sure do, and right now, a bunch of them are only $15. Not sure how long that sale will last, but I think it just started a couple days ago.

Claymoore

The Solution Architect - Associate is the best place to start. The DevOps or SysOps Associate tracks require more hands-on experience. Both Amazon and Global Knowledge offer training courses. I took the course from Global Knowledge last year and earned my Associate. Professional is next on my list now. I work for an AWS partner, and they want me to have it by the end of the year. I don't think I will be ready to test at re:Invent, but it would be cool to take it there.

Amazon has plenty of free learning material available:

Most of the online documentation is available as a free Kindle ebook. Typically there is a Getting Started guide as an introduction, followed by a User/Admin/Developer guide for a deep dive.
Amazon Web Services Kindle Author Page

The presentation slide decks are available on Slideshare.net
Amazon Web Services presentations channel

Amazon publishes whitepapers for technologies and use cases
https://aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/

AWS has a monthly webinar series
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/events/monthlywebinarseries/

AWS has a YouTube channel where they post the recorded webinars and presentations from the seminars
https://www.youtube.com/user/AmazonWebServices

QwikLabs offers free intro labs and paid labs for more advanced topics
https://qwiklabs.com/
https://qwiklabs.com/searches/lab?keywords=introduction

paul78

I'm a big advocate of cloud related technologies. And you may not want to limit to just AWS. Many large enterprises use Cloud technologies differently - and not everyone uses AWS. I personally have a preference for CloudFoundry and Openstack based private clouds.

I would also suggest checking out:

mycrowdwisdom.com

5502george

thanks for all of the advice guys. I enrolled in an AWS class from UDEMY. Its awesome so far and I got the class for only $10. The sale ends today for anyone else interested in the class.

@paul78, I will ck out the cert after I get the AWS as. Seems like a great site to learn non-vendor side of the house.

Sounds Good

How do you see it for $10? I'm seeing it for $50.

5502george

Sounds Good wrote: »

How do you see it for $10? I'm seeing it for $50.

Udemy Coupons, Deals and Promo Codes

expires today!

I am in the "Acloudguru" class

Sounds Good

dangit I must've missed it as I don't see it anymore in any of the links I click.

5502george

It seems like they are running deals all the time. I just noticed it on the 30th, I was going to pay the $70 and then looked for coupons and lucked out. Just keep checking here and there.

Sounds Good

5502george wrote: »

It seems like they are running deals all the time. I just noticed it on the 30th, I was going to pay the $70 and then looked for coupons and lucked out. Just keep checking here and there.

Don't know if I'll need it by then. I'm using CBTNuggets at the moment, but it's from 2013. I also dislike Jeremy Ciora's speaking style even though I listened to him throughout all of my CCNA videos.

My company will also be sending me to a 3 day architecting bootcamp in October so I should be fine after that. Will keep a lookout for the sysops/devops one though!

NetworkNewb

There is this as well if you're planning on taking the exam soon... You have to pay for the site for at least 30 days but they will pay for your exam if you pass it before the end of the year.

https://www.##########.com/courses/amazon/amazon-aws-associate/

edit: apparently this site doesn't like that site I linked... Definitely not a **** site not sure why I can't link it...

https://www.how to network.com/courses/amazon/amazon-aws-associate/ (this is the link with spaces added between "how to network", just remove the spaces...)

philz1982

As someone who has been preparing for a Cloud Architect Interview the past couple weeks. Here are some really good resources.

First I would learn the big 3 AWS, Azure, Google (Compute and App Engine)

Here are a couple books/slide decks I've read that are immensely helpful on understanding the design patterns and logic

Overall Architecture
http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/b/6/bb69622c-ab5d-4d5f-9a12-b81b952c1169/clouddesignpatternsbook-pdf.pdf
http://www.thepathtoagility.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/steveriley2.pdf
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/assets/presentations/retter-saturn2013.pdf

AWS
https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/aws_cloud_adoption_framework.pdf
https://media.amazonwebservices.com/AWS_Cloud_Best_Practices.pdf
http://media.amazonwebservices.com/CloudMigration-main.pdf
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-ug.pdf

Azure
download.microsoft.com/download/e/.../Azure_Services_Platform.pdf
http://www.reliablesoftware.com/presentations/Introduction%20to%20Cloud%20Computing%20with%20Microsoft%20Azure.pdf
https://channel9.msdn.com/events/Microsoft-Azure/Level-Up-Azure-IaaS-for-IT-Pros

Google Cloud
https://cloud.google.com/files/esg-whitepaper.pdf
https://cloud.google.com/files/articles/google-cloud_technical-article_mobile-solutions.pdf
https://cloud.google.com/files/articles/google-cloud_technical-article_overview-of-storage-options.pdf
http://cdn.oreillystatic.com/en/assets/1/event/99/Google%20in%20the%20Cloud%20Presentation.pdf

If you learn the fundamentals of architecture and learn to deal with the main cloud issues availability, concurrency, latency you will have a solid head start. Understanding when to use IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. When to shift processes to the cloud, how to prioritize processes, how to deal with multi-regional latency. How to deal with business logic and rollback for processes. All of those are major architectual concerns.

Learning what the main drivers are around cloud. The big ones being Dev/Test, DR/HA, and off-loading or as folks in the cloud call it (lift and shift) where you take routine compute intensive operations and shift them to the cloud.

There's more hope this helps.