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Writer's pictureDayana Rose

From Data Center to Cloud: A Step-by-Step Guide for Network Engineers Transitioning to DevOps

Updated: Jun 27


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Introduction


Many companies have agreed that migration to the cloud will help save money and operate more efficiently. Here is the Step-by-Step Guide for network engineers transitioning to DevOps. People might be thinking why transition to Cloud and DevOps? This guide provides all the fundamental information and the practical steps that network engineers need to learn on how to transform into Cloud and DevOps value delivery systems today to embrace scalability, agility, and cost optimization. 


Why Transition to Cloud and DevOps?


Reason

Description

High demand

Increased need for cloud and DevOps professionals as more companies migrate to the cloud.

Competitive salaries

Roles in cloud and DevOps come with attractive salaries due to the specialized skills required.

Innovation and efficiency

Enables faster development cycles, improved scalability, and greater efficiency in operations.

Job security

Expertise in cloud and DevOps ensures strong job security and numerous career opportunities.

Skill development

Promotes continuous learning and skill enhancement, keeping professionals updated with the latest technologies.

Versatility

Skills are highly transferable, allowing work across various industries and projects.

Remote work opportunities

Offers flexibility of remote work, providing better work-life balance and broader employment opportunities.




What Every Network Engineer Needs to Know about Cloud Basics


Cloud computing is a paradigm that allows on-demand network access to shared computing resources. It is a model for managing, storing, and processing data online via the Internet. Some of the characteristics of cloud computing are on-demand service, network access, shared resources, and scalability. 


Cloud models 

SAAS (Software as a service)


It is a service that offers on-demand pay per use of applications software to users. Unlike licensed-bought programs. This service is platform-independent and doesn't need to install the software on the PC. The cloud runs a single instance of the software. It makes it available for multiple end-users. This makes cloud computing cheap. All the cloud computing resources responsible for delivering SaaS or entirely managed by vendors. This service is accessible via web browser or lightweight client applications. 


Examples of products and services of SaaS are Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, Microsoft Office 365, HR and helpdesk solutions, and customer relationship management services such as Salesforce. 


PAAS (Platform as a service)  

This service is made up of a programming language execution environment, an operating system, a web service, and a database. All of them encapsulate the environment where users can build, compile, and run the programs without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. In this model, we can manage data and the resources of the application, and all other resources are managed by the vendor. 


Examples of products and services of PaaS are AWS, Elastic Beanstalk, Google AppEngine, Windows Azure, etc… 


IAAS (Infrastructure as a service)

This service offers the computing architecture and infrastructure that is it offers all the computing resources but in a virtual environment. So that multiple users can access them. Resources include Data storage, virtualization, services, and networking. Most vendors are responsible for managing the above resources. The user will be responsible for handling other resources such as applications, data, runtime, and middleware. 


Examples of products and services of IaaS are Amazon EC2, GoGrid, and Rackspace.com


Core Services 


Compute (virtual machines)

It is possible to obtain computing power in three ways; an organization can acquire power from cloud providers where power is available through virtual machines with configurations that can be changed depending on the specific need in different cases. These include Amazon Web Services-AMS Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine, and Google’s Google Cloud Compute Engine.


Storage

There is a sufficient and efficient method for data backup and storage which cloud storage offers organizations while still having the ability and flexibility to be expanded. These categories are; object storage; which comprises S3, blobs storage, block storage; consisting of EBS, disk storage, file storage which consists of EFS, and Azure Files.


Databases

Managed database services are the practice of outsourcing of installation of a database, setup and management support, or tuning of a database to the service provider. These are; Relational databases include Amazon RDS and Azure SQL Database On the other hand, NoSQL databases include Amazon Dynamo DB and Azure Cosmos DB among others.


Networking

Services for networking help in the creation of the connection in the most secure way and are part of services such as VPCs or load balancer services and VPN services. Some of them include AWS VPC, Microsoft/Azure Virtual Networks, and Google VPC.




Cloud Providers 


Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Of all the features AWS possesses in the cloud computing domain, some of the most significant include solution portfolio, capability, as well as geographic reach. It offers various services to its clients in the cloud options in computing, storage, databases, and machine learning.


Microsoft Azure

Azure is an easy-to-implement learning environment and application that works well with other Microsoft technologies; therefore, well well-favored by many organizations. Furthermore, it is among the major trends of cloud as a service and its primary solution areas are within the AI, analytics, and IoT.


Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

This is effective in areas of data analysis, artificial intelligence, and the flexibility of integrating large systems. It offers innovative possibilities to perform computational work, store, query, and manage data, as well as to design and implement applications and services.


Mapping On-Premise Skills to Cloud Skills


Server management to compute services - Through cloud practical abilities will be attained while carrying out on-site hosting are applied to operate virtual hosts and compute services like AWS EC2, Azure Virtual Machines, and Google Compute Engine.

Networking to cloud networking - While moving to cloud concepts, the traditional networking skills come while working with cloud services like VPCs of AWS, Azure, and GCP, load balancers, and VPNs.

Database management to cloud databases - Will be familiar with the managed services of cloud databases which include the likes of Amazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, or Google Cloud SQL to develop skills in database management.

Security to Cloud Security - Security expertise is essential because it involves the provision of better security measures in the cloud in areas like IAM, security, and GRC in AWS, Azure, and GCP.



Getting Started with DevOps Tools and Practices


You can transition easily by understanding the following concepts: 

CI/CD Pipelines – Jenkins or GitLab CI/CD pipelines are a critical tool that allows integration and delivery of the software from code integration to deployment.

Configuration management: Ansible and Puppet automate various infrastructure management and configuration processes and thus eliminate the inconsistency occurring from manual work.

Containerization – With Docker one can create small, virtual isolated environments or containers to deploy applications which when migrated from one environment to another, has ease.

Orchestration – Kubernetes is responsible for helping organizations orchestrate the deployment, operations, as well as scaling of containerized applications efficiently by ensuring the availability and reliability of applications.


Essential Cloud Certifications for Network Engineers


AWS certified solutions architect  (Associate) - Through this certification, you will be prepared to design systems that are elastic and highly available in AWS standards, applicable for a career in cloud architecture.

Microsoft Certified: It ensures that one is equipped with the competence in designing and deploying solutions in Azure, and is suitable for a role as an Azure solutions architect.

Google Professional Cloud Architect - It will prepare you to closely relate to the competencies requisite for cloud architecture in Google Cloud Platform involves the process of designing and managing cloud solutions within Google Cloud.

CertifiedkubernetesAdministrator (CKA) - It Gives you the knowledge of how to operate Kubernetes clusters to be used both in container orchestration and management.

AWS Certified DevOps Engineer  (Professional) - It will make you specialized in deploying & managing applications on AWS & DevOps mainstream for the DevOps engineer position.


Conclusion 

To conclude, the shift in the role of traditional network engineers is reflected in the rapid shift to the cloud. Network engineers need to start preparing for DevOps and cloud technologies to stay ahead of the curve and stay ahead of the curve in their professional lives. They not only become more proficient but they will also have a better understanding of the rapidly evolving IT sector. Network engineers start with this guide, a revolution that will prepare them for the challenges of a future dominated by cloud computing.


To know more about specializations in DevOps, eligibility criteria, fee structure, and syllabus of our DevOps Engineer Program, please click here.


If you want more information, please contact us on +91 8137977796


Ready to step on to the path towards your successful DevOps future?











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