Kick Starting Your Cloud Career
Tags: cloud, career, cloudskills, beginners
Published: 2021-06-28 19:15:55

<small>*Originally published at:			https://community.skycrafters.io/t/kick-starting-your-cloud-career/259*</small><br><p><span data-contrast="auto">You might be new to the tech industry &#8211; or maybe you’ve been working in data centers for a while &#8211; but you decided it’s finally time to start you cloud career. What now?</span></p>
<h2 aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="none">Should you get certified?</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;335559738&quot;:240}"> </span></h2>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">There is a long debate in our forum about <a href="https://community.skycrafters.io/t/certifications/87">whether or not you should pursue certification</a> as part of your cloud career roadmap</span><span data-contrast="auto">. Some think that, in one hand, holding a certification doesn’t show content knowledge in itself, but in the other, it shows eagerness to learn. </span><span data-contrast="auto">It’s true that </span><span data-contrast="auto">certifications are no substitute to hands-on experience, but the goal of achieving </span><span data-contrast="auto">one </span><span data-contrast="auto">might be a great way to motivate yourself to learn a new skill</span><span data-contrast="auto">.</span></p>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">Keep in mind, that</span><span data-contrast="auto"> a certification may not make your resume shine brighter than others, but it might be a requirement for the role</span><span data-contrast="auto">. </span><span data-contrast="auto">Watch out, though</span><span data-contrast="auto">. </span><span data-contrast="auto">Having too many certifications publicly, in a</span><span data-contrast="auto">n</span><span data-contrast="auto"> email signature or </span><span data-contrast="auto">LinkedIn</span><span data-contrast="auto">, might come off as bragging!</span></p>
<h2 aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="none">Exam Training</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;335559738&quot;:240}"> </span></h2>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">Once you decide to pursue a certification, you’ll have countless hours of study ahead of you. </span><span data-contrast="auto">The question now is, </span><span data-contrast="auto">should you do training in person or online? With some parts of the world slowly going back to business </span><span data-contrast="auto">as usual (as much as possible), in person learning is now, once again, a possibility. </span><span data-contrast="auto">Which one works best for you? This topic, also </span><a href="https://community.skycrafters.io/t/is-online-training-a-good-option/225"><span data-contrast="none">previously discussed by Skycrafters</span></a><span data-contrast="auto">, is a really hot one!</span><span data-contrast="auto"> Let’s go over the pros and cons of each.</span></p>
<h3><span data-contrast="auto">Online</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233279&quot;:true}"> </span></h3>
<p><strong>Pros: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li><span data-contrast="auto">Being able to playback content fas</span><span data-contrast="auto">ter or slower depending on familiarity with the topic</span></li>
<li><span data-contrast="auto">Easier, since it can be done from anywhere</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233279&quot;:true}"> </span></li>
<li><span data-contrast="auto">Sometimes, free</span></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Cons: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li><span data-contrast="auto">Easy to have your mind </span><span data-contrast="auto">wandering to something else (after all, your Slack and phone are right there!)</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233279&quot;:true}"> </span></li>
<li><span data-contrast="auto">The lon</span><span data-contrast="auto">eliness </span><span data-contrast="auto">of not having someone to discuss the coursework with on a daily basis</span></li>
</ul>
<h3><span data-contrast="auto">In Person</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233279&quot;:true}"> </span></h3>
<p><strong>Pros: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li data-leveltext="o" data-font="Courier New" data-listid="1" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="2"><span data-contrast="auto">Closeness to other people to exchange </span><span data-contrast="auto">ideas and thoughts</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233279&quot;:true}"> </span></li>
<li data-leveltext="o" data-font="Courier New" data-listid="1" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="2">A live instructor to consult with in real time</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Cons: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li data-leveltext="o" data-font="Courier New" data-listid="1" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-aria-level="2"><span data-contrast="auto">Harder to deal with boring topics/classes</span></li>
<li data-leveltext="o" data-font="Courier New" data-listid="1" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-aria-level="2"><span data-contrast="auto">Usually more expensive</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">So, which one is the best? This is a totally personal choice </span><span data-contrast="auto">based on how you value each of the bullet points above. I’d personally pick in person training anytime, </span><span data-contrast="auto">because I get easily </span><span data-contrast="auto">distrac</span><span data-contrast="auto">… Sorry, I was checking my phone. Where were we again?</span><span data-ccp-props="{}"> </span></p>
<h2 aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="none">Vendor lock-in in the Cloud</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;335559738&quot;:240}"> </span><span data-ccp-props="{}"> </span></h2>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">Cloud computing is great, there is no denying that. </span><span data-contrast="auto">As someone that is learning </span><span data-contrast="auto">a new technology, </span><span data-contrast="auto">especially</span><span data-contrast="auto"> if you are aiming at a particular </span><span data-contrast="auto">certification, it’s easy to </span><span data-contrast="auto">get 100% </span><span data-contrast="auto">focused </span><span data-contrast="auto">on just one Cloud Service Provider for a while, like AWS for instance. </span><span data-contrast="auto">If you ever need to switch and learn more </span><span data-contrast="auto">about Azure, </span><span data-contrast="auto">it’s not that hard to pivot from one to the other. After all, the overall </span><span data-contrast="auto">concepts are so similar that even Azure itself </span><span data-contrast="auto">provides a really nice </span><a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/aws-professional/services"><span data-contrast="none">guide on </span><span data-contrast="none">how their services compare to AWS’</span></a><span data-contrast="auto">.</span></p>
<h3>The dream of cloud-agnostic</h3>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">However, the s</span><span data-contrast="auto">tory isn’t as simple as providers like to paint. Vendor lock-in is a true </span><span data-contrast="auto">challenge that the </span><a href="https://community.skycrafters.io/t/vendor-lock-in-and-the-cloud/146"><span data-contrast="none">Skycrafters community has been discussing</span></a><span data-contrast="auto">, </span><span data-contrast="auto">and many consider a pipe dream. A dream because</span><span data-contrast="auto">, a truly cloud-agnostic environment, would be able to run on any vendor environment, or even local. That allows the organization to pursue lower costs, whenever that is available from a competing vendor, but also a “get out of jail card” in case your current vendor becomes a </span><span data-contrast="auto">competitor with a </span><span data-contrast="auto">brand new</span><span data-contrast="auto"> service release. It’s a dream, however, because </span><span data-contrast="auto">it can be expensive </span><span data-contrast="auto">– in different ways &#8211; </span><span data-contrast="auto">to run such a workload</span><span data-contrast="auto">. If you try to escape using Amazon SQS, for instance, you might want to leverage </span><span data-contrast="auto">open-source</span><span data-contrast="auto"> solutions like RabbitMQ. But </span><span data-contrast="auto">now, you need to </span><span data-contrast="auto">deploy and </span><span data-contrast="auto">maintain a new stack of infra service that isn’t directly delivering value to your customers. </span><span data-contrast="auto">Cloud computing is all about </span><span data-contrast="auto">taking </span><span data-contrast="auto">the most</span><span data-contrast="auto"> of the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/shared-responsibility-model/">Shared Responsibility Model</a>, and running your own </span><span data-contrast="auto">infrastructure services </span><span data-contrast="auto">isn’t the way to maximize it.</span></p>
<h3>Kubernetes to the rescue?</h3>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">Kubernetes is viewed as a way to minimize vendor lock in </span><span data-contrast="auto">through</span><span data-contrast="auto"> its open </span><span data-contrast="auto">architecture</span><span data-contrast="auto">. </span><span data-contrast="auto">It can take servers</span><span data-contrast="auto">, no matter if running on AWS, Azure, GCP, on premises, etc</span><span data-contrast="auto">.</span><span data-contrast="auto">, </span><span data-contrast="auto">and transform them in </span><span data-contrast="auto">computing capacity for this big cluster running spread across all of them. But it isn’t </span><span data-contrast="auto">a bed of roses either, according to those that </span><span data-contrast="auto">have experience on it. </span><span data-contrast="auto">Running </span><span data-contrast="auto">it</span><span data-contrast="auto"> yourself can be really painful, and exactly why most providers also offer their own flavor of Kubernetes-as-a-Service. But wouldn&#8217;t using it make you go back to the lock in stage?</span><span data-contrast="auto"> </span><span data-contrast="auto">Don’t use it just because it’s a hot topic, as many do. If you ever learn and use it, make sure it makes sense to your challenge.</span></p>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">The goal here is to make clear you understand you shouldn’t create a </span><span data-contrast="auto">vendor</span><span data-contrast="auto">&#8211;</span><span data-contrast="auto">lock-in</span><span data-contrast="auto"> situation for y</span><span data-contrast="auto">ourself. Make sure you don’t just understand how to use your provider of choice services, but also the reasoning behind it and its concepts.</span></p>
<h2 aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="none">Infrastructure as Code</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;335559738&quot;:240}"> </span></h2>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">Now that you dominated </span><span data-contrast="auto">all the cloud knowledge you were seeking and learned all the cool stuff that your cloud provider of </span><span data-contrast="auto">choice has to offer, you also need to learn that you rarely are going to use its dashboard to build anyth</span><span data-contrast="auto">ing for real. The dashboard is great for labs, tests, demos or to learn something new, but not for production environment. Production environment requires </span><span data-contrast="auto">predictability</span><span data-contrast="auto">, </span><span data-contrast="auto">agility</span><span data-contrast="auto">, consistency</span><span data-contrast="auto">, minimization of risk</span><span data-contrast="auto"> and reproducibility. </span><span data-contrast="auto">If you try a thousand times to create a simple S3 bucket in AWS via its dashboard, it’s almost guaranteed that you are going to make a mistake at least once</span><span data-contrast="auto"> and, even if you nailed it,</span><span data-contrast="auto"> it would </span><span data-contrast="auto">take you a lot of time. Hence, Infrastructure as </span><span data-contrast="auto">Code</span><span data-contrast="auto">(</span><span data-contrast="auto">IaC)</span><span data-contrast="auto">.</span></p>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">IaC is a way to describe your infrastructure as, you guessed it, code. As much as software is defined in lines of code, so is the infrastructure. </span><span data-contrast="auto">You can write code that can define a thousand different S3 buckets and, as you execute it, you would reliable and </span><span data-contrast="auto">quickly have a thousand buckets. No mistakes made.</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true}"> </span></p>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">To give you </span><span data-contrast="auto">an</span><span data-contrast="auto"> better idea on what an IaC would look like, here’s a quick example:</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true}"> </span></p>
<pre><span data-contrast="none">Resources:</span> 
<span data-contrast="none">  </span><span data-contrast="none">S3Bucket:</span> 
<span data-contrast="none">    </span><span data-contrast="none">Type:</span><span data-contrast="none"> </span><span data-contrast="none">'</span><span data-contrast="none">AWS::</span><span data-contrast="none">S3::Bucket'</span> 
<span data-contrast="none">    </span><span data-contrast="none">Properties:</span> 
<span data-contrast="none">      </span><span data-contrast="none">BucketName</span><span data-contrast="none">:</span><span data-contrast="none"> </span><span data-contrast="none">MY-REALLY-COOL-BUCKET</span><span data-ccp-props="{}"> </span></pre>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">As </span><a href="https://community.skycrafters.io/t/the-state-of-azure-iac/163?u=raphabot"><span data-contrast="none">our members previously discussed</span></a><span data-contrast="auto">, there are </span><span data-contrast="auto">a lot of different IaC flavors, </span><span data-contrast="auto">some native, some </span><span data-contrast="auto">open-source</span><span data-contrast="auto">, some </span><span data-contrast="auto">multi-cloud</span><span data-contrast="auto">. </span><span data-contrast="auto">To name a few that you might want to check out, we have:</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true}"> </span></p>
<ul>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="3" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">CloudFormation &#8211; AWS Native and YAML/JSON based</span></li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="3" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">Azure Resource </span><span data-contrast="auto">Manager(</span><span data-contrast="auto">ARM) – Azure native and it has its own DSL (D</span><span data-contrast="auto">omain-Specific Language)</span></li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="3" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="3" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">Terraform – Open-source, </span><span data-contrast="auto">multi-cloud</span><span data-contrast="auto"> and </span><span data-contrast="auto">it uses its own DSL</span></li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="3" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="3" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">CDK </span><span data-contrast="auto">–</span><span data-contrast="auto"> Newer</span><span data-contrast="auto"> </span><span data-contrast="auto">AWS </span><span data-contrast="auto">n</span><span data-contrast="auto">ative </span><span data-contrast="auto">offering that is </span><span data-contrast="auto">open-source</span><span data-contrast="auto"> and </span><span data-contrast="auto">you can code using your </span><span data-contrast="auto">favorite </span><span data-contrast="auto">programming language</span></li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="3" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="3" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">Bicep</span><span data-contrast="auto">&#8211; Newer Azure native offering that is open-source and has its own DSL</span></li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="3" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="3" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">Pulumi</span><span data-contrast="auto"> – New open-source </span><span data-contrast="auto">offering, that is </span><span data-contrast="auto">multi-cloud</span><span data-contrast="auto"> and </span><span data-contrast="auto">can code </span><span data-contrast="auto">using</span><span data-contrast="auto"> your favorite programming language</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;134233279&quot;:true}"> </span></li>
</ul>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">And since IaC is easily replicable, you can take your time to build one really </span><span data-contrast="auto">well </span><span data-contrast="auto">crafted</span><span data-contrast="auto"> and documented template and reuse it across your projects, organization, and even publicly share with other members of the community! Which brings us </span><span data-contrast="auto">to&#8230;</span></p>
<h2 aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="none">Best practices in the cloud</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;335559738&quot;:240}"> </span><span data-ccp-props="{}"> </span></h2>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">This is another great </span><a href="https://community.skycrafters.io/t/understanding-best-practices-when-building-in-the-cloud/181"><span data-contrast="none">topic our members are discussing</span></a><span data-contrast="auto">.</span><span data-contrast="auto"> </span><span data-contrast="auto">Building confidently in the cloud can be challenging. Often, we use a technology and find out later that we could have been using it bette</span><span data-contrast="auto">r.</span><span data-contrast="auto"> There are hund</span><span data-contrast="auto">reds </span><span data-contrast="auto">of different ways to build in the cloud using the providers’ services. </span><span data-contrast="auto">And, despite the default configuration for many of them being “good enough”, “good enough” often times doesn&#8217;t cut it.</span></p>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">That’s exactly why many providers offer </span><span data-contrast="auto">their set of best practices</span><span data-contrast="auto">, usually called Well Architected Framework, or WAF for short. Taking AWS as example here, </span><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/well-architected/"><span data-contrast="none">their WAF</span></a><span data-contrast="auto"> is divided in five pillars: Cost Optimization, </span><span data-contrast="auto">Operational Excellence, Security, Performance and </span><span data-contrast="auto">Reliability. </span><span data-contrast="auto">Each pillar </span><span data-contrast="auto">has their own set of white papers that explain </span><span data-contrast="auto">thoroughly how to achieve the state-of-the-art </span><span data-contrast="auto">usage of their services</span><span data-contrast="auto">, while understanding the balance between the five pillars.</span><span data-ccp-props="{}"> </span></p>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">As it can take a while to build well-architected architectures for your projects, the combination of WAF with IaC is really powerful. </span><span data-contrast="auto">Whenever you </span><span data-contrast="auto">write your own IaC templates that build </span><span data-contrast="auto">well-</span><span data-contrast="auto">architected</span><span data-contrast="auto"> </span><span data-contrast="auto">architectures</span><span data-contrast="auto">, you can</span><span data-contrast="auto"> </span><span data-contrast="auto">reuse</span><span data-contrast="auto"> them across your applications, saving time and bringing </span><span data-contrast="auto">your environment to the forefront of what the </span><span data-contrast="auto">cloud providers can offer.</span></p>
<h2 aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="none">Hybrid Cloud</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;335559738&quot;:240}"> </span></h2>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">Hybrid cloud is a </span><span data-contrast="auto">really hot topic right next to m</span><span data-contrast="auto">ulti-cloud that our</span> <a href="https://community.skycrafters.io/t/hybrid-cloud-adoption/242?u=raphabot"><span data-contrast="none">community is debating</span></a><span data-contrast="auto">. First, let’s take NIST’s </span><span data-contrast="auto">definition</span><span data-contrast="auto"> for it:</span></p>
<blockquote><p><i><span data-contrast="none">The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities, but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load balancing between clouds).</span></i><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;335551550&quot;:2,&quot;335551620&quot;:2,&quot;335559685&quot;:864,&quot;335559737&quot;:864,&quot;335559738&quot;:200,&quot;335559739&quot;:160}"> </span></p></blockquote>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">Although NIST’s cloud computing definition is taken as the de facto way to describe</span><span data-contrast="auto"> it, </span><span data-contrast="auto">the hybrid cloud </span><span data-contrast="auto">approach is mostly used when there is a combination of one or more public providers </span><b><span data-contrast="auto">and</span></b><span data-contrast="auto"> a private cloud to support a</span><span data-contrast="auto">n organization IT needs.</span></p>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">This is particularly </span><span data-contrast="auto">interesting for organizations </span><span data-contrast="auto">that have restrictions on </span><span data-contrast="auto">how they process certain types of data, like banks</span><span data-contrast="auto">.</span><span data-contrast="auto"> This allows them to leverage the public cloud to easily and cheaply scale as needed while maintaining the </span><span data-contrast="auto">costumer’s data local to their data center.</span></p>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">It’s important to note, however, that being able to pull this kind of scenario off is really challenging, since </span><span data-contrast="auto">it can be </span><span data-contrast="auto">particularly</span><span data-contrast="auto"> hard to </span><span data-contrast="auto">separate the data </span><span data-contrast="auto">access </span><span data-contrast="auto">through</span><span data-contrast="auto"> Identity Access Management </span><span data-contrast="auto">across clouds. </span><span data-contrast="auto">Also, </span><span data-contrast="auto">dedicated links between the provider data center and your </span><span data-contrast="auto">organization can be necessary because of the latency introduced by internet access, and they can be quite expensive.</span></p>
<h2 aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="none">Com</span><span data-contrast="none">plement your studies with Podcasts</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;335559738&quot;:240}"> </span><span data-ccp-props="{}"> </span></h2>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">You probably can’t spend the entire day studying. </span><span data-contrast="auto">At some point </span><span data-contrast="auto">you are going to find yourself </span><span data-contrast="auto">doing something manual and boring that doesn’t take much of your brain energy. Riding </span><span data-contrast="auto">the subway or driving a car to the office (remember those?) is a good example, but it might also be cleaning your place or mowing your lawn. This is the perfect time to expand your cloud skills by</span><span data-contrast="auto"> listening to a good podcast. <a href="https://community.skycrafters.io/t/what-podcasts-have-you-been-listening-to/235">Our members have compiled a good set of podcasts</a> that I’m happy to share with you here:</span></p>
<ul>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">Screaming in the Cloud, by Corey Quinn</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true}"> </span></li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">The </span><span data-contrast="auto">Idealcast</span><span data-contrast="auto"> with Gene Kim</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true}"> </span></li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="3" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">Talking Serverless, by Ryan Jones</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true}"> </span></li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="4" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">The New Stack Makers, by The New Stack</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true}"> </span></li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="4" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">Mik</span><span data-contrast="auto"> + One, by Dr. </span><span data-contrast="auto">Mik</span><span data-contrast="auto"> Kersten</span></li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="4" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">Girls In Tech podcast</span></li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="4" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">Blinkist</span></li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="4" data-aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="auto">Cloud Security Podcast</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233279&quot;:true}"> </span></li>
</ul>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">Keep in mind that not all of them are </span><span data-contrast="auto">necessarily cloud related, but they might help you develop other skills and </span><span data-contrast="auto">ares</span><span data-contrast="auto"> of expertise to help you in your cloud career. After all, </span><span data-contrast="auto">technical </span><span data-contrast="auto">ins’t</span><span data-contrast="auto"> binary and </span><span data-contrast="auto">the cloud space isn’t just for those in the far</span><span data-contrast="auto">&#8211;</span><span data-contrast="auto">right spectrum of </span><span data-contrast="auto">it</span><span data-contrast="auto">.</span></p>
<h2 aria-level="1"><span data-contrast="none">Closing Notes</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;335559738&quot;:240}"> </span></h2>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">Cloud computing can get </span><span data-contrast="auto">challenging</span><span data-contrast="auto"> really quickly, but it can also be exciting and </span><span data-contrast="auto">fun. </span><span data-contrast="auto">Especially,</span><span data-contrast="auto"> when you have a </span><span data-contrast="auto">number of peers to work and innovate with. It doesn’t matter if you are a seasoned cloud </span><span data-contrast="auto">practitioner</span><span data-contrast="auto">, or if you are just starting out, Skycrafters can be a place for you to network, find answers quickly and bounce ideas off </span><span data-contrast="auto">other members while learning in the process.</span></p>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">Skycrafters is home of great curated content, </span><span data-contrast="auto">amazing open-source code to </span><span data-contrast="auto">use or contribute to, and </span><span data-contrast="auto">a safe place where I hope you can grow your cloud career and skills.</span><span data-ccp-props="{}"> </span></p>
<p><span data-contrast="auto">What are you waiting for? Skycrafters is 100% free, no </span><span data-contrast="auto">gimmicks, and </span><span data-contrast="auto">joining it can be a </span><span data-contrast="auto">stepping stone</span><span data-contrast="auto"> for your cloud career and those around you.</span></p>