Cloud computing - Rush for gold

Lot of IT folks come up to me and have one thing to say - how do we move to computing ? what should we learn ? I want to change my career to cloud computing ? And to answer that, I have written this piece and here we go ....

I would like to start with saying one thing, that, if you are in IT field, you should realise that you cannot learn everything. It is because of vastness of the field and various domains and specialisations it is made of. Cloud computing is no different.

But at the same time, I would like to say that cloud computing is not very different from Traditional computing. You have same networks, applications, data or users as you would have on your -premises. Only difference is it sits on a virtual infrastructure or on someone else’s infrastructure (cloud service provider). So, keep this in your mind when starting your cloud computing journey.

Now, I will tell you from 2 perspective - one, if you are already an experienced IT professional or secondly if you are fresher.

So, if you are already an experienced IT professional (I do not care if you are a 3 year experienced or 30 years), then what is your current role. Are you a networking professional, software developer, database expert or a solution architect. Are you in technical support. For you, I will suggest you to get a basic understanding how cloud works. Comptia cloud+ is a good certification. Its vendor neutral certification. Cybrary.it has a very good course on it. Once, you understand how cloud works, then you should extend your existing career into cloud. If you are a software developer, you can start developing apps for cloud or become part of DevOps. You can help existing organisations in moving existing applications to cloud (there are lot of jobs for that). If you are in networking, you can move to creating virtual private networks in cloud. Solution Architect can move to becoming Cloud Architect. So I would suggest existing experienced guys can leverage their existing knowledge and experience and move to relevant domain in the cloud.

For freshers, my suggestion is to begin with Comptia cloud+. You have no choice but to start with cloud because future is cloud and more than 90 percent of infrastructure will move to cloud by 2025. And then, see your interest. what you want to do in cloud computing. My personal advice is to make one domain your core domain and specialise. What I have seen, is instead of realising your own potential and your interest, people choose career on “what is hot in the market” or “which one pays more”. Every profession, eventually pays more if you are really good at it.

Lastly, I will give you my example. I started as a Firewall engineer 15 years back and then moved to network security, information security, cyber security and now specialise in cloud security. I had always kept security as my core domain. So, I would suggest you same.

-----------------

We offer quality cloud security services and cloud security training through our company Secloud LLC based in Dubai. Visit us at https://www.secloud.guru for comprehensive services.