Introduction
Recently modernized services, products, and infrastructure have their advancement borne out of the development of science and technology research including but not limited to information-based technology on software, computers, and networking. Technology is one of the dominant factors that is exponentially changing our ways of life with significant effects on automating our process of thinking which has led to rapid and efficient ways of delivering value to simple and complex workflow systems. The reality of this has paved way for the inclusion of modern technologies either as support assistant(s) or self-dedicated standalone instrument(s) in the execution of our day-to-day activities for effective and accurate performance.
The sphere of modern technology covers many spectrums of specialization ranging from high-tech computing and networking coverage, artificial intelligence and robotics, big data engineering, 3D printing, virtual realities and smart technologies, cloud computing, and blockchain, to mention a few. The impact of these technologies is highly significant with spread across multiples sectors – education, business, manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, governance, security, etc with their high dependencies in usage which raises issues about the future of modern technology and its societal concerns.
As highlighted above, cloud computing is one of the modern technology that has captured the interest of information technology stakeholders, consumers, and enthusiasts with lots of investments in building driving infrastructures, solutions, governance, and bounded opportunities for the interested parties. Cloud computing refers to the availability (provisioning) of on-demand computing resources – power and data storage excluding the need for direct or active user management of these resources. Hence, it is the process of sharing resources – servers, applications, and storage through the internet.
The adoption of cloud computing among information technology industries can not be overemphasized as it provides high-end security to consumers' data, reduces company capital expenses in provisioning data centers and affords better pricing options for needed services consumption, offers flexibility and scalability in business operations, high-availability with efficiency without geographical restrictions – thereby supporting rapid collaboration and productivity among the team. The major cloud service providers provding mainly infrastructure as a service, software as a service, and platform as a service are Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, Oracle Cloud in hierachy of market share and industry adoption.
The Helpful Beginners' AWS Learning Resources
Amazon Web Service is the leading cloud service provider with wide global adoption offering over 200 fully feature services from data centers with a focus on providing lower cost, agility, and fast innovations to her millions of customers.
The following are helpful resources I have explored and found useful in understanding to have a good grasp of concepts and practical aspects of exploring AWS cloud computing as an enthusiast novice.
The Community
"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." ...Winston Churchill
“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” ...Albert Einstein
A tech community is an ecosystem of broad diverse individuals in tech with ranging expertise, synergizing efforts to the development of their collective and shared technical skills and providing avenues for bounding to one another for career opportunities and societal impacts.
- The AWS Community
It is one of the outstanding initiatives that offer her diverse members of different levels of technical expertise and enthusiasts inclusive access to technical resources, education, and networking opportunities. The vibrancy of the community keeps the aspiration of enthusiasts alive and motivates technical thought leaders in sharing their knowledge – staging informative webinars, workshops, and conferences to abreast of the modern cloud computing technology and exposure to the advancement of components in AWS services. There are quite enormous blogs in which builders like me have shared more insights into their experience as AWS Community Builders and its impacts on their career progression. Here are a few of the blogs for reference - My first 6 months as AWS Community Builder, Becoming an AWS Community Builder, 10 Benefits to joining AWS Community Builders and so on.
In advancing the scale, there is a robust community - AWS Certified Global Community for individuals that attained at least one of the AWS certifications – seeing to meet certified fellows and other exceptional events for your career progression and a wide reach to a global audience.
- Andela & ALX Learning Community Though primarily focused on software development, recently Andela included the training of her member in the path of cloud computing to her Andela Skills Race in partenership with AWS with partial financial support in attaining the AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification.
With the same focus on training enthusiasts, ALX also provides training support in pathing your ride to a top-notch cloud expert. The application to participate in the program is still open, click here to apply ALX-AWS-Cloud-Practitioner
The Learning Platforms
In contribution to easing learning of cloud services provided by AWS, there is numerous platform that simulates great learning experience for beginners and experts – providing theoretical and hands-on guidance in navigating these services and providing business value out their training in handling business challenges. The listed are some of the identified and experienced platforms (freemium and premium) with valuable content - AWSSkillBuilder, FreeCodeCamp, Coursera, Edx, Udemy, ExamPro, Adrian Cantrill Course
Moreso, the AWS community builders inspired many to publish helpful learning content and their technical know-how experience in working with AWS services and beyond. These contents are flooded and loaded with quality guides on platforms like AWS Blog, dev.to aws builders, medium, and youtube.
Your Commitment and Aspiration
Being a starter on the path of cloud computing comes with swirling aspirations of a variety area of specializations, each demanding utmost commitment in moving one's bar of expertise both on the required soft and technical skills to the next advanced level. In order not to be caught in the net of wanting all and later having none, it will be great one defined his area of interest to build his/her expertise considering factors like prior knowledge background, career prospects, and required commitments in achieving the objectives wanting to be on this path.
Cloud computing offers career prospect technical roles as Cloud Developer, Cloud Administrator, Cloud Support or Sysops or DevOps Engineer, Cloud Architect, Cloud Security Engineer, and Cloud Technical Account Aanager, and non-technical roles as Project Manager, Sales and Marketing Officer, and Finance Manager.
At each stage of the technical roles, AWS captures needed services and integrated tools to work with and provides needed certification to affirm your competency in capturing values with services for organizations and individuals. Beneath is a helpful guide in navigating the AWS certification path to becoming a full-stack AWS service expert.
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