Module 1 - Cloud Concepts Overview

Introduction

• Intro to cloud computing
• Advantages of cloud computing
• Introduction to AWS
• AWS Cloud Adoption Framework

Section 1: Introduction to cloud computing

What is cloud computing ?

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of compute power, database, storage applications, and other IT resources via the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing

Infrastructure as software

Cloud computing enable you to stop thinking of your infrastructure as hardware and instead think of it as software.

In the traditional compute model:

• Infrastructure as hardware
• Hardware solutions
  • Require space, staff, physical security, planning, capital expenditure
  • Have a long hardware procurement cycle
  • Require you to provision capacity by guessing max peaks

Cloud computing model:

• Infrastructure as software
• Software solutions:
  • Are flexible
  • Can change more quickly, easily and cost-effectively than hardware solutions
  • Eliminate the undifferentiated heavy-lifting tasks

Cloud service models

Cloud computing deployement models

1. Cloud
2. Hybrid
   • Between cloud and existing premises
3. On-premises (private cloud)
   • Dedicated resources

Similarities between AWS and traditional IT

Section 2: Advantages of the cloud

Trade capital expense for variable expense

Capital expense = capex

Massive economies of scale

Because of aggregate usage from all customers, AWS can achieve higher economies of scale and pass savings onto customers.

Stop guessing capacity

Increase speed and agility

Weeks between wanting resources and having resources to only minutes.

Stop spending money on running and maintaining data centers

Go global in minutes

Can deploy applications in multiple places of the world

Section 3: Introduction to AWS

What are web services ?

A web service is any piece of software that makes itself availbale over the internet and uses standardized format such as XML or JSON fro the request and the response of an API interaction.

What is AWS

• a secure cloud platform offering a broad set of global cloud-based products
• provides on-demand access to compute, storage, network, database, and other IT resources and management tools
• offers fexibility
• You pay only for the individual services you need, as long as you use them
• AWS services work together like Legos

Services

Choosing a service

The service you select depends on your business goals and tech requirements.

3 ways to interact with AWS

• AWS management console
  • Easy-to-use graphical interface
• Command Line Interface (AWS CLI)
  • Access to services by discrete commands or scripts
• Software Developement Kits (SDKs)
  • Acces services directly from your code

Section 4: Moving to the AWS Cloud

AWS Cloud Adoption Framework

AWS CAF provides guidance and best practices to help organizations build a comprehensive approach to cloud computing across the organization and throughout th IT lifecycle to accelerate successful cloud adoption

AWS CAF is organized into six perspectives

Perspectives consist of sets of capabilities.

Six core perspectives

Business perspectives

We must ensure that IT is aligned with business needs, and that IT investments can be traced to demonstrable business results - Business managers, finance managers, budget owners, and strategy stakeholders

People perspectives

We must prioritize training, staffing and organizational changes to build an agile organization - Human resources, staffing, and people managers

Goverance perspective

We must ensure that skills and processes align IT strategy and goals with business strategy and goals so the organization can maximise the business value of its IT investments and minimize business risks. - CIO, program managers, business analysts and portgolio managers

Platform perspective

We must understand and communicate the nature of IT systems and their relationships. We must be able to describe the architecture of the target state environment in detail. - CTO, IT managers and solutions architects

Security perspective

We must ensure that the organization meets its security obejctives - CISO, IT security managers and IT security analysts

Operations perspective

We align with and ssupport the operations of the business, and define how day-to-day, quarter-to-quarter, and year-to-year business will be conducted - IT operations manager and IT support managers

Wrap-up

Sample exam question

Why is AWS more economical than traditional data centers for applications with variable compute workloads ?

1. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) costs are billed on a monthly basis
2. Customers retain full administrative access to their Amazon ECE2 instances
3. Amazon ECE2 instances can be launched on-demand when needed
4. Customers can permantly run enough instances to handle peak workloads

Answer

Keywords: AWS more economical than traditional data centers, indicate one of the 6 computing benefits and variable indicates need for flexibility
Answer: 3