finding rest in devops
Tags: aws, learning, devops, cloud
Published: 2023-03-11 10:52:28

### Going into AWSome clouds

It all began with a question my partner asked me. She asked what is a cloud engineer and what is cloud? I paused for a moment and said the cloud is like the plumbing between people and apps. It makes data and apps available to us at great scale and you don't have to hold the server in your hands and build it yourself. But then the cloud isn’t just that. It's so much more. It’s about connections and how complex relations happen between services and which ones work best for which workloads. And how much work and care and passion there is between the users and machines. Something like that. I began thinking more and more about the cloud days after that. I felt that hacking vibe and a wish to get into it deeper or higher. The thing is once you start thinking about the cloud you start thinking globally like on a massive scale.


![image of clouds](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/1zf8hgndqupzs75mlwkq.jpeg)

### aws makes it all together

So yeah, like for example I have used ssh and keys and shells, and have ran scripts on my linux, installed virtual machines and played with archlinuxes and recently spent much time tinkering with NixOS. Or like I know about load balancers from reading the hackernews and how sites are cached around the world for better latency for the users. These things pop out  all the time. But that's just theory for me and constant shifting of my attention from this or that. The thing about AWS is that it actually helps me in staying focused with my learning because  all that seemingly random stuff I read about here and there or have engaged a bit on my individual machines now starts to make sense and is reflected into a global computing picture which is not static at all. AWS makes you hold everything you know and then learn some more by engaging with their services. These services show you how stuff connects actually. You can try stuff out, not just think about it.


![Image of clouds](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/osuhviamc7b606qvrud2.jpeg)

### AWS gives all the playground on massive scale

But the great thing that inspires to go deeper into it is that AWS actually helps with the education and practical tools. There are these aws certifications and training, that test your knowledge of the concepts and the language and give a sort of framework through which one can see, have a bird eye view of what and how these services connect and what are the best and worst practices. I do love gentle hand holding and just love the general idea of certifications and how amazon is actually showing care about education through those. I didn't think like that before sadly. I was proud of being a loner explorer thinking acomplishing certs is boring. I underestimated their educational value and how they can help in seeing a larger picture of processes.

### I discover that I know more than I thought

OK so I planned to do the cloud practitioner certification and have began a course on youtube. Then I signed up for a AWS online conference event that happened on 9th March because I read they will be offering free 75% off price vouchers for the certificates. Great! I really liked the talks and by the end of the day I got the associate solutions architect badge for the 75% price. I asked on aws reddit and in short I was recommended to do that one instead of the cloud practitioner one because of my poweruser background. So while I am far away from actually knowing how aws works I realized my previous random linux knowledge and lots of reading and trying stuff out is actually helping me to understand aws concepts. Yes they have specific names for theis services like EC2 or S3 or DynamoDB but I did read about NoSQL databases before, and I am familiar with running virtual machines and setting different parameters. So now somehow all that random stuff I did is actually coming together in this aws journey. I can learn how it all works on massive scale and go slowly through it. Yeah, and I bought the Stephane Maarek udemy course on solutions architect so Im studying now with better focus.


![Image of clouds](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/egs090bn8wfx8nydlbor.jpeg)

Im pretty excited in finding the right inspiration to learn devops and cloud with aws. This was the first post of my journey into devops and aws that had more to do with inpiration than technical issues. Stay tuned. I cant wait to write more technical stuff about the cloud. Its so exciting. 

P.s. These images of clouds in Croatia throughout the blog post were taken by me.