Cloud Computing Overview

• This module introduces Cloud Concepts Overview and AWS Academy Cloud Foundations.

Module Objectives

• Define different types of cloud computing models.
• Describe six advantages of cloud computing.
• Recognize the main AWS service categories and core services.
• Review the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF).

Introduction to Cloud Computing

• Cloud computing involves the on-demand delivery of computing power, database resources, storage, applications, and other IT resources over the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing.
• Cloud computing allows infrastructure to be viewed and used as software.

Traditional Computing Model

• Infrastructure is treated as hardware.
• Hardware solutions necessitate space, staff, physical security, planning, and capital expenditure.
• A long hardware procurement cycle is typical.
• Capacity provisioning requires guessing theoretical maximum peaks.

Cloud Computing Model

• Infrastructure is approached as software.
• Software solutions are flexible.
• Solutions can change more quickly, easily, and cost-effectively than hardware options.
• Undifferentiated heavy-lifting tasks are eliminated.

Cloud Service Models

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offers more control over IT resources.
• Platform as a Service (PaaS).
• Software as a Service (SaaS) provides less control over IT resources.

Cloud Computing Deployment Models

• Cloud is a deployment model.
• Hybrid cloud is a deployment model.
• On-premises (private cloud) is a deployment model.

Similarities Between AWS and Traditional IT

• Traditional IT elements, such as security groups, firewalls, network ACLs, and administrators, have counterparts in AWS.
• Networking components like routers, network pipelines, and switches align with AWS Elastic Load Balancing and Amazon VPC.
• Compute servers correspond to Amazon EC2 instances, using AMIs.
• Storage and database solutions such as DAS, SAN, NAS, and RDBMS are mirrored by Amazon EBS, Amazon EFS, Amazon S3, and Amazon RDS.

Section 1 Key Takeaways

• Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources via the internet utilizing pay-as-you-go pricing.
• Cloud computing lets one consider and utilize their infrastructure as software.
• Iaas, PaaS, and SaaS are the three cloud service models.
• Cloud, hybrid, and on-premises or private cloud constitute the three cloud deployment models.
• Almost anything that can be implemented using traditional IT can also be implemented as an AWS cloud computing service.

Advantages of Cloud Computing

• Trade capital expense for variable expense:
  • Transition from up-front capital expenditure to paying only for the resources consumed.
• Massive economies of scale:
  • AWS achieves higher economies of scale through aggregated usage, passing savings to customers.
• Stop Guessing Capacity:
  • Scaling on demand adjusts resources according to actual needs.

Increase Speed and Agility

• Cloud computing reduces the time between wanting and having resources from weeks to minutes.
• Stop Spending Money on Running and Maintaining Data Centers:
• Cloud computing shifts investment from running data centers to business and customer-focused endeavors.

Section 2 Key Takeaways

• Transition from capital expenses to variable expenses.
• Benefit from massive economies of scale.
• Eliminate guesswork about capacity needs.
• Increase speed and agility in resource deployment.
• Cease spending on data center maintenance; and go global in minutes.

Introduction to Amazon Web Services (AWS)

• Web services are software components available over the internet using standardized formats (e.g., XML, JSON) for API interactions.
• AWS is a secure cloud platform that offers a broad set of global cloud-based products.
• AWS enables on-demand access to compute, storage, network, database, other IT resources, and management tools.
• Flexibility is a key feature.
• Payment is only required for the individual services used, for the duration of use.
• AWS services are designed to interoperate like building blocks.

Categories of AWS services

• Numerous categories including Analytics, Application Integration, AR/VR, Blockchain, Business Applications, Compute, Cost Management, Customer Engagement, Database, Developer Tools, End User Computing, Game Tech, Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Management and Governance, Media Services, Migration and Transfer, Mobile, Networking and Content Delivery, Robotics, Satellite, Security, Identity & Compliance, and Storage.

Simple Solution Example

• A simple solution would involve:
  • Users accessing a web service that utilizes compute resources (e.g., Amazon EC2), database (e.g., Amazon DynamoDB), storage(e.g., Amazon S3), and networking within a virtual private cloud (VPC) in the AWS Cloud.

Choosing a Service

• Service selection depends on business goals and technology requirements.

Services Covered in This Course

• Compute Services: Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, AWS Elastic Beanstalk
• Storage Services: Amazon S3, Amazon S3 Glacier, Amazon EFS, Amazon EBS
• Database Services: Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Aurora
• Networking and Content Delivery Services: Amazon VPC, Amazon Route 53, Amazon CloudFront, Elastic Load Balancing
• Security, Identity, and Compliance Services: AWS IAM, Amazon Cognito, AWS Shield, AWS Artifact, AWS KMS
• Management and Governance Services: AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS CloudWatch, AWS CloudTrail, AWS Well-Architected Tool, AWS Auto Scaling, AWS Command Line Interface, AWS Config, AWS Management Console, AWS Organizations
• AWS Cost Management Services: AWS Cost & Usage Report, AWS Budgets, AWS Cost Explorer

Interacting with AWS

• AWS Management Console: GUI for ease of use.
• Command Line Interface (AWS CLI): Uses commands/scripts to access services.
• Software Development Kits (SDKs): Code for accessing services, (Java, Python, etc).

Section 3 Key Takeaways

• AWS is a secured cloud platform with a wide array of global cloud-based products and services designed to work together.
• There are many categories of AWS services, each with a multitude of service options.
• The choice of service should align with the business goals and technology needs.
• There are three methods of accessing AWS services.

AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF)

• The AWS CAF provides guidance and best practices for organizations to help build a comprehensive approach to cloud computing across the organization and throughout the IT lifecycle, in order to accelerate successful cloud adoption.
• Organized into six perspectives, each encompassing sets of capabilities.

Perspectives

• Business, platform, people, governance, security and operations are a few of the AWS CAF perspectives.

Business Perspective

• Ensures IT alignment with business needs and traceability of IT investments to business results.
• IT finance, IT strategy, benefits realization, and business risk management.
• Key roles: Business managers, finance managers, budget owners, and strategy stakeholders.

People Perspective

• Focuses on prioritizing training, staffing, and organizational changes to build an agile organization.
• Includes resource management, incentive management, career management, training management, and organizational change management relating to people.
• Human resources, staffing, and people managers should focus on this perspective's capabilities.

The aim is to prioritize training, staffing, and organizational changes to build an agile organization.

Governance Perspective

• To align skills and processes with IT and business strategies to maximize the value of IT investments while minimizing business risks.
• Portfolio management, program and project management, business performance measurement, and license management for a company.
• CIO, program managers, enterprise architects, business analysts, and portfolio managers contribute to governance's capabilities.

Platform Perspective

• Understanding and communicating the nature of IT systems and their relationships; capability to describe the architecture of the target state environment in detail.
• Focuses on compute, network,storage and database.
• CTO, IT managers, and solutions architects take the lead.

Security and Operations

• The security ensures security objectives are met like the CISO.
• The operations aims to support the operations of the business through IT managers.

Cloud Adoption

• Cloud adoption requires thoughtful strategies and alignment across the organization.
• The AWS CAF is designed to facilitate this journey, organizing guidance into six areas (perspectives) with sets of business or technology capabilities. The responsibility of key stakeholders.