4 Steps to Baseline Cloud Fluency
Think fast: if you’re in a meeting about cloud computing and someone throws out the term “auto-scaling,” will you know what they’re talking about?
How about elastic load balancing, or setting up a virtual private cloud?
These are some of the essential terms to attain “baseline cloud fluency,” according to one cloud tech expert.
“The cloud computing market is growing fast, and the trend is forecasted to continue,” says Ryan Kroonenburg, Co-Founder and Instructor, A Cloud Guru in this article for InformationWeek. “In fact, a recent Gartner report projected that global spending on public cloud services will grow 18 percent in 2021, to a total of over $300 billion. This means even more companies will accelerate their move to the cloud, and they’ll need employees with the know-how to make it happen.”
That’s where cloud fluency comes in, says Kroonenburg.
“You can have two engineers that excel at one kind of cloud operation, but if the rest of the team can’t speak their language, nothing gets done,” he writes.
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4 Steps to Baseline Cloud Fluency
“Here are four trip-up topics that we found to frequently stump cloud learners and what I think IT teams should know to master them, building on their cloud vocabulary in the process,” according to Kroonenberg.
Cloud Term #1: Auto-scaling. “Auto-scaling helps to adjust your server count to manage shifts in traffic volume. For instance, imagine that you've just launched a new product, and an influx of users are excitedly trying to order it through your app or website. If you haven’t configured auto-scaling correctly, you’re about to collapse under the weight of your success. Auto-scaling is tricky for a couple of reasons. Not only do you have to make the right call on which auto-scaling option you want to use, but you also have to ensure that you pick the right route.”
Cloud Term #2: Identity and access management (IAM). “IAM allows you to manage who has access to a console by setting up users, groups, permissions, and roles. You can grant access to different parts of the platform, very granular permissions down to an individual user getting access to one service and not another. It’s how cloud resources speak to each other, how you audit them, and how you control access for your developers to update them, making it core to any cloud usage. With IAM, the stakes are high: One compromised account could end up leading to a breach across your entire cloud footprint.”
Cloud Term #3: Elastic load balancing. “Elastic load balancing is designed to help you balance the network load across multiple servers. When selecting a load balancer, consider which option is best suited to your applications and expected traffic. Next, you're going to have to address how you'd like to route your traffic to your various web services. Consider top-level configurations like sticky sessions, cross-zone load balancing, and path patterns.”
Cloud Term #4: Virtual private cloud. “A virtual private cloud (VPC), also called a virtual private network, is like a virtual data center in the cloud. VPCs are the place to put your database, your application servers, your back-end reporting processes, and anything you don’t want directly exposed to anyone with an internet connection. With VPC, your goal is to keep some information safe and off the internet while also connecting internet-facing services to both that information to the web simultaneously. You will likely want to set up your own VPC, versus relying on a preset, for improved security and customization.”
Source: Information Week
Jay Reeves is author of The Most Powerful Attorney in the World. He practiced law in North Carolina and South Carolina. Now he writes and speaks at CLEs, keynotes and in-firm presentations on lawyer professionalism and well-being. He runs Your Law Life LLC, which offers confidential, one-on-one consultations to sharpen your firm’s mission and design an excellent Law Life. Contact jay@yourlawlife.com or 919-619-2441.
