Fundamentals of Cloud computing: Why everyone should do it.

Recently I took up this excellent course on Udemy called Microsoft Azure: The Zero to hero - A complete Guide by Memi Lavi. (link) This blog is talks about why did I take up this course and how did I benefit from it

Why did I take this course ?

For about 15 years of my most recent work history, I have primarily focused on data science and data engineering. About two years ago, I transitioned into a broader Digital & AI leadership role at TVS Motors. This new role involved overseeing and building software engineering capabilities while continuing to manage responsibilities related to data science and data engineering.

software engineering was and continues to be a relatively new area for me and my responsibilities requires me to understand the following things about building and managing software applications.

1. how to optimize software development and maintenance costs esp. making choices on cloud platforms, compute strategies (IAAS, PAAS, SAAS) etc.

2. how to handle global deployments (i.e. manage deployments for users in india and other international markets)

3. how to improve software GTM and performance

4. Developing a roadmap for tech-stack and App modernization strategy and its execution

In order the achieve the objectives mentioned above, I spend a lot of time with my software engineering and architect colleagues, listening to plans, actions and recommendations related to software applications management and modernization.

while all of these interactions and reviews were a great learning opportunity for me, when it came to decision making on tech architecture, I had a limited point of view of my own given my limited circle of competence in software engineering & cloud computing.

Over the last 2 years, basis recommendations from my colleagues, I read books on clean code and clean architecture by Robert C Martin. The next thing I needed to learn was to develop a good understanding of cloud, cloud services and Cloud architectures. Since most of our workloads is on MS Azure cloud, I decided to learn fundamentals of MS Azure cloud.)

How did I benefit from it

I have been a old time user of Udemy and I generally rely on Udemy's search bar and ratings to choose my courses. With 110K students having taken this course and 15K students having given an average rating of 4.6/5, It was an easy choice.

It took me about 40 hours to finish this course and I feel very good & confident about myself now. I feel I am better prepared to achieve my objectives on tech modernization than I was a few weeks back.

Some specific things I learnt

1. 360 view of various cloud services and how can we take advantage of these services to achieve our tech goals. i.e. cloud set-up, compute, networking, data management, messaging, identity mgmt, monitoring, security and Disaster recovery.

2. Factors to keep in mind while choosing compute resources like virtual machines, app services, containers and azure functions etc.

3. Learnt to study and design azure architecture diagrams. very important for me, from now on I will be able to review cloud architectures independently

4. Importance of deployment slots - allows us to upload codes and test it separately from the main site.
   

5. understanding of networking related cloud services like Vnet, Subnet, application gateway and load balancer. understanding of secure VM access - VPN, Bastion, Jump box and JIT Access

6. various messaging options and how to choose - storage queue, event grid, service bus and event hub.

7. Enabling authentication and authorization, defining RBAC and using managed identity establish connection between system resources

8. Enable monitoring - Configure the subsription and azure resources to stream logs for querying & monitoring.

9. Design disaster recovery startegy for data and compute. understanding RTO (recovery time objective) for compute and RPO (recovery point objective) for data

10. Cloud migration strategies and planning

My recommendations

If you are in a management role: If you are digital transformation, digital product management roles and in engineering leadership roles, if you are data science or a data engineering leader, its very important to have a elementary of various services available on a cloud platform and how can you take advantage of it.

If you are in an execution roles:If you are a software developer, a testing engineer, a data scientist, a data engineer or a product owner, Its important for you to have a birds eye view of various cloud services available as you deep-dive into specific areas like messaging, data services, devOps, security etc.

The birds eye view provides a better appreciation for your inter-dependancies with other tech teams, allows better collaboration and overall allows you to be more successful in your role and help your teams become more successful.

Whats next

• With these newly acquired learning on cloud, I look forward to get into my next review/meeting, better equipped to be a better team player and enable better team success.

• I have enrolled my an advanced cloud course on Azure as well as Intend to take up fundamentals of cloud course on GCP and AWS next.

Thanks