What is a cloud architect? What does it cloud

architect do that's different from what a developer does? What

skills does someone need to have in order to move from a role as

a software developer, to a role of a cloud architect? today?

We'll find out. Are you ready? Let's go.

This is the modern digital business podcast, the

technical Leaders Guide to modernizing your applications

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with actionable insights and recommendations, as well as

thoughtful interviews with industry experts, Lee Atchison.

Hello, and welcome to modern digital business.

Today we're going to talk about becoming a cloud architect. What

does a cloud architect do that's different from what a typical

software developer does, or a typical operations engineer,

Cloud Architect roles are in high demand, especially given

the rise in interest in cloud native architectures, and micro

service based applications. And highly innovative businesses use

cloud native architectures to gain a competitive advantage.

And Cloud architects are right at the center of this need.

Becoming a cloud native architect first involves

obviously becoming a software architect. But beyond that, a

cloud architect generally has more responsibilities than just

a standard software architect, and requires more specialized

knowledge and expertise. The modern cloud architect must

understand how building and operating applications in the

cloud differs from building and operating traditional

applications. This isn't a matter of understanding

different programming concepts. This is about understanding the

operational role of the modern application, and the role that

IT infrastructure plays in operating a modern digital

application. You may say this sounds like DevOps, and you

could in fact be right. Being a cloud architect starts by

understanding and knowing how to use DevOps principles in a

modern application. Then beyond the basic DevOps knowledge and

experience comes knowledge and experience with cloud

technologies and how to optimize their years. This involves

understanding the availability of various cloud services, and

how they can be applied to a given purpose. How do you use

cloud data storage? Which storage option is right? For

what purpose? What about cloud based scalable databases such as

DynamoDB. Understanding and leveraging the dynamic resource

capabilities of the cloud is essential for building cloud

optimized applications that are both scalable, and highly

available without excessive and expensive reserve capacity. This

is the fundamental basis of architecting any basic cloud

based application, whether it's a small one off application, or

a large enterprise grade monolith architecting a cloud

native application, however, involves more than this, and

involves understanding the concerns of building highly

modular applications using microservices that can scale the

development and operational requirements of the application,

not just the traffic utilization. A modern cloud

native application can be successfully developed and

operated by two engineers, or 2000 engineers. These

applications are highly adaptable, and responsive to

customer and business needs and requirements. They are

constantly changing, constantly improving, and constantly

performing. To build and launch cloud native applications

successfully. Cloud native architects must understand the

following number one, how to build distributed service based

applications, particularly those built with microservice based

architecture concepts. Number two, how services can operate in

a highly fluid and changing operating environment. Services

are constantly resized, adjusted, upgraded and

reconfigured, traffic is dynamically adjusted and

controlled, and applications are highly monitored and managed in

a highly distributed non centralized manner. Number

three, the role of containers and container orchestration

software such as Kubernetes in the construction and operation

of a modern application. Number four, how cloud services such as

data services, compute queuing, networking security, artificial

intelligence and machine learning can be lost leveraged

to enhance the capabilities of the cloud native application.

Number five, how network infrastructure and routing work,

and how traffic routing between services and service nodes works

in order to use cloud services effectively. Number six, the

fundamentals of cloud security, and how to build safe and secure

applications using built in cloud capabilities. Number

seven, basic service development concepts such as the 12 factor,

application, and basic service, operational and security

concepts, such as the principle of least privilege and the

principle of shared responsibility. Number eight,

how to expertly operate the cloud services for the vendors

they support, including cloud vendor specific training and

certifications. And number nine, how the cloud services being

used actually operate internally. This is critical for

knowing the strengths and weaknesses and performance

characteristics of the cloud services in various situations.

For example, can AWS lambda be used in a particular use case?

Is the distributed cloud centric database appropriate for a given

application? Or is a more traditional SQL database better

suited? Does a cloud based caching service satisfy your

performance needs? Take your career to the clouds. If you're

a software developer, or software architect, who is

considering advancing your career and becoming a cloud

native architect. The concepts we've covered in this episode

are some of the most important skills and expertise you'll need

to acquire. But the hard work can easily pay off. As

architects fluent, and building cloud native applications

effectively and efficiently are in high demand today. And they

play an essential role in all modern application development

organizations. Are you interested in learning more? Me

I suggest my newest course available on LinkedIn learning

called Cloud careers from developer to architect.

Additionally, please take a look at my new course at the address

in the academy titled basics of cloud security. Both courses are

quick and inexpensive courses that can help you on your cloud

architect journey. Thank you for tuning in to modern digital

business. This podcast exists because of the support of you my

listeners. If you enjoy what you hear that you please leave a

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mdb.fm/reviews. If you'd like to suggest a topic for an episode,

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mdb.fm If you want to learn more from me to check out one of my

books, courses or articles by going to Lee atchison.com. And

all of these links are included in the show notes. Thank you for

listening and welcome to the world of the modern digital