Ask HN: How to Learn Cloud Development?

5 points by buildartefact 2 years ago | 5 comments

I’m a graphics programmer who wants to move to cloud development. What’s the fastest way to get skilled up on writing and deploying secure services to CSPs to create large-scale, distributed applications?

I know words like k8s, containers, helm charts and have a high-level idea about what all these mean, but don’t know where to start learning how to actually implement and deploy any of this stuff.

Are there any good online courses, or up-to-date books you recommend to learn?

deadcoder0904 2 years ago |

I just learned Docker in ~2 hours from this channel -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg19Z8LL06w&pp=ygUPZG9ja2VyI... (see if you like it)

If you do like it, she has a complete course. 2 courses actually - Devops Bootcamp & DevSecOps bootcamp.

That's all you need to learn really fast.

The second video I watched was in my native language but it was cool as well. You can use subtitels bcz this guy has unique teaching style. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31k6AtW-b3Y&pp=ygUPZG9ja2VyI...

Or you can read books if you can learn fast with that. Look up author Nigel Poulton. He has 2 books - one on Docker & one on Kubernetes. Grab the latest version.

I avoided docker for a decade only to learn it in 2 hours. It is really simple. I also tweeted this recently which I think is accurate but I probably don't know what I'm talking about -> https://twitter.com/deadcoder0904/status/1756606191227273648

NoCoding_Life 2 years ago |

Well, first u should choose a cloud platform like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to focus your learning efforts. Each platform offers a wide range of services and tools for building and deploying distributed applications. Then, find appropriate courses or books about it. Talking about books, I can strongly recommend "Cloud Native Patterns: Designing Change-tolerant Software", "Architecting for the Cloud: Best Practices", "Cloud Computing: Concepts, Technology & Architecture", and "Azure for Architects: Implementing Cloud Design, DevOps, IoT, and Serverless Solutions on your Public Cloud".

kesavvaranasi 2 years ago |

What helped me when I started 4 years ago was taking some certification exams offered by AWS and Azure. They're a bit pricey in my opinion but I needed a structured curriculum to guide my learning.

Other than taking these exams, I just set up an AWS account and played around with the services, which is free if you stay within the usage limits of the free tier. I started with learning about the core services, how to provision infra using infrastructure-as-code, how the billing model works, etc.

frompdx 2 years ago |

While it doesn't deal directly with cloud development, "Designing Data Intensive Applications" covers much of what you are interested in learning about such as large-scale or distributed applications.

"Kubernetes up and Running" covers the basics of what Kubernetes is and how to use it. Within the first few chapters you should be able to use what you have learned to deploy an application to an inexpensive hosting provider like DigitalOcean.

The best way to learn is to learn by doing. After those books that's what I recommend.

buildartefact 2 years ago | |

Thanks for the recommendations. I’m definitely planning on trying to build something as I learn so the tip on DigitaOcean is appreciated too.