Cloud / Terraform / Chef job with basic Linux?

Ciaranp

I am a sysadmin with 10 years experience in on-prem Windows environments. I moved country recently so I am out of work at the moment and I'm taking some time to concentrate on certs. I am a bit concerned that there will be much less demand for Windows sysadmins over the next 10 years + so I want to future proof myself, I want to get into cloud computing and passed my Az-103 last year and recently  passed the AWS Solutions architect, both of which I enjoyed working in the cloud, I have also been studying Powershell to an extent where I can create basic scripts for day to day work.

When I do a job search for cloud jobs it seems to heavily focused on Linux which I have zero experience with, I also would like to start working with technologies such as Chef, Puppet and Terraform as they seem to be linked with cloud jobs and growing, but I am concerned about my lack of linux experience.

I am willing to spend some time studying Linux, say the Comptia Linux plus exam to get be the basic foundation of Linux to allow me to work with these technologies and help me with a cloud job. Do you think that knowing Linux to a Comptia level would be enough to work in cloud jobs and with things like Puppet, Chef, Terraform? Just to be clear I don't plan on becoming a Linux admin, and would like to still work mainly with Windows, I'm not sure if that's generally a thing to work mainly with Windows but have basic Linux knowledge, should I just stick to Windows and Powershell if I don't plan on learning Linux to more than a basic level?

Neil86

Linux is widely used in the cloud. Azure, AWS, Google, they all offer some forms of Linux. I haven't used any Linux myself in work environments, but my experience with Azure is not the most advanced. I think getting the Linux+ cert would only help if your goal is to get into cloud roles.

JDMurray

Red Hat Enterprise Linux might be the most important distro of Linux in Cloud computing environments today. Red Hat's OpenShift is a very popular Cloud Computing Platform as a Service and Red Hat's CloudForms and OpenStack are also very popular for data center management (IaaS). Red Hat also has a very comprehensive training and certification program.

cochi78

Just chipping in here for completeness sake. I am mainly working as a Chef Consultant and the two big projects recently were 90+% Windows anyway. Especially in industries with lots of regulations, Windows usage is still strong - mostly due to historic reasons.

Same with a lot of Cloud stuff (I've done AWS Consultancy for over five years), there's extensive cloud-vendor migration programs which are often used for large Windows-based loads.

So if you want to go the Cloud/Conf Management route, you might be surprised about the demand with Windows. I know we're shortstaffed there...