Welcome to the course

Welcome to ‘How to Get Into Cloud Computing’! We’re thrilled to have you join us on this exciting journey. Cloud computing plays a pivotal role in powering essential services and software that you likely use in your daily life, and we look forward to sharing this with you as you learn about cloud computing in this course.

In recent years, the internet has experienced explosive growth. This has been driven by the proliferation of mobile devices, affordable computers, the prevalence of social media, and the increasing demand for basic computer literacy in nearly all professional fields. More and more people are utilising the internet, web applications, mobile apps, and internet-connected systems and devices (commonly referred to as the “Internet of Things” or “IoT”) every single day. In fact, it’s estimated that the internet now boasts around 5 billion users; approximately 62% of the world’s population today! To put this in perspective, the entire global population was 5 billion people in 1987, just 36 years ago.

The unprecedented surge in internet and software usage has created a pressing need for software solutions that are highly scalable, resilient, and cost-effective for businesses, organisations, and governments. Cloud computing offers the necessary technologies and tools to meet these demands, all within a flexible and cost-efficient “pay-as-you-go” pricing model.

A career in cloud computing is exciting for a number of reasons:

1. It presents the opportunity to tackle new challenges with every project, making your work both intellectually stimulating and rewarding.
2. The cloud computing landscape is ever-evolving, necessitating a commitment to ongoing learning. Almost every year, innovative solutions emerge that either address new problems or enhance existing ones. Staying relevant in such a rapidly changing industry requires a commitment to continuous education.
3. Professionals in the cloud computing industry, as well as those who use cloud computing to develop software, must possess expertise in a wide range of technologies and tools to construct robust, resilient, and scalable software solutions that today’s world demands.

Furthermore, a career in cloud computing is almost future-proof. Given current technological trends and the statistics mentioned above, an increasing number of companies are investing in cloud-based software and systems. Recent transitions to the cloud by industry giants like Netflix have resulted in the creation of numerous cloud computing jobs, too. We will look into some of these success stories in this course.

Moreover, even in the improbable scenario that cloud computing were to become obsolete or overly competitive in the distant future (which is highly unlikely), the skills you acquire in this field will remain transferable to other areas.

Glossary

As you complete the course you may come across terms and references that require further explanation. To help with this, there is a glossary that you can view and refer to at any point in the course.