My future in 'the cloud'

[reddog]

(Wasn't sure whether to post this in Technical, but I thought business was more appropriate)

My Past and Present: I have contracted for quite a few years as a Linux / Unix sysadmin, but in my current long running contract I have been doing more DevOps / Environment management.

My Future: I was planning to get back into Linux / Unix admin when my current project ends, and thought about taking a RedHat Cert to get me fully up to speed. However I recently found out that a major financial institute that I used to contract for is gradually moving from onsite infrastructure to Amazon Web Services. This was a bit of a surprise, as I didn’t expect off premises cloud computing to hit financial services so soon. But in all honesty, this sort of outsourcing makes a lot more sense than the usual offshoring BS.

My Question: Looks like the days of the classic Unix / Linux sysadmin are numbered. How should I approach my transitions to ‘the cloud’ (a term that seems to mean different things to different people). I was thinking of going through the Redhat Certification course material, but practice on Amazon Cloud Infrastructure instead of a local PC as an entry point. However I am open to any other suggestions. (I am conscious I may just replicating the same old processes, but on cloud infrastructure, I guess moving away for many people will be a challenge going forward).

[oliverson]

(Wasn't sure whether to post this in Technical, but I thought business was more appropriate)

My Past and Present: I have contracted for quite a few years as a Linux / Unix sysadmin, but in my current long running contract I have been doing more DevOps / Environment management.

My Future: I was planning to get back into Linux / Unix admin when my current project ends, and thought about taking a RedHat Cert to get me fully up to speed. However I recently found out that a major financial institute that I used to contract for is gradually moving from onsite infrastructure to Amazon Web Services. This was a bit of a surprise, as I didn’t expect off premises cloud computing to hit financial services so soon. But in all honesty, this sort of outsourcing makes a lot more sense than the usual offshoring BS.

My Question: Looks like the days of the classic Unix / Linux sysadmin are numbered. How should I approach my transitions to ‘the cloud’ (a term that seems to mean different things to different people). I was thinking of going through the Redhat Certification course material, but practice on Amazon Cloud Infrastructure instead of a local PC as an entry point. However I am open to any other suggestions. (I am conscious I may just replicating the same old processes, but on cloud infrastructure, I guess moving away for many people will be a challenge going forward).

[SueEllen]

How long is a piece of string?

Seriously you have answered your own question.

[LondonManc]

Read up on AWS and how it works, then assess whether that sort of model works for you in terms of it being the sort of environment that you want to work in.

[northernladuk]

HTH...

[SpontaneousOrder]

linux boxes on AWS still need administering.

[gables]

linux boxes on AWS still need administering.

This ^^

If the firm are moving to cloud infrastructure, like we have here, then as said above the normal datacentre operations need to be performed. But, additional considerations have to be made like how you access the infrastructure\security, supplier (amazon) management and SLAs etc am0ongst others.

[fool]

This ^^

If the firm are moving to cloud infrastructure, like we have here, then as said above the normal datacentre operations need to be performed. But, additional considerations have to be made like how you access the infrastructure\security, supplier (amazon) management and SLAs etc am0ongst others.

Maybe but if you're playing the game right, they're cattle not pets.

In that vein, learn cloudformation. Use ELBs, LaunchConfiguration and Autoscaling Groups. Do that over 3 zones and stop logging into the boxes and you're a baby cloud engineer.

[MrMarkyMark]

[gables]

Maybe but if you're playing the game right, they're cattle not pets.

In that vein, learn cloudformation. Use ELBs, LaunchConfiguration and Autoscaling Groups. Do that over 3 zones and stop logging into the boxes and you're a baby cloud engineer.

That's me told