The cloud only as cool as you make it
It feels good to be back in front of my computer and writing about my favorite subject. That would of course be the subject of IT and technology. It's been a crazy couple of years and in that short timespan things have drastically changed in the landscape of ones and zeros. Everybody seemed to think that the cloud was going to be this big disaster and why would we ever move to it. In all honesty some companies are still hesitant to move to the cloud even with the mass migrations that are happening now. Over the last few years I have spent my priority focused on AWS and consuming the multitude of services that they provide. This statement alone is enough to get me burned at the stake from other people that believe in other cloud providers. That being said what am I saying when I put out the phrase "AWS only as cool as you make it" ?
For starters, most of the services are not complete entities unto themselves. You will find that although they provide certain aspects to each service they don't always do everything you would want. A good example would be the CodePipeline service. Although it's neat and allows you to easily deploy services and code it lacks enterprise scale when you want to develop CI/CD out of the box. This isn't to say that you can't add on the bits and pieces that are needed. In fact, I think this is one of the most important pieces of the entire structure. I would commend AWS on the factor that they develop something enough without overdoing it and making it impossible for everyone else out there to adapt it to their needs.
Next is the understanding of how different services can interact with other services. A good example of this is the CloudFormation. Before the recent additions it seemed impossible to have manageable templates without having to go overboard in adding things to the template. If you did this how was your template truly dynamic? The simple answer was that it was not possible until the additions. Adding things like macros and my favorite addition the custom resource. The custom resource allowed me to suddenly change things that were not exposed, well as of yet, for the template language. A couple of examples of that would be RDS log exporting and setting a custom expiration on CloudWatch log groups that were automatically created after you enabled said logs.
The last item is the best of course and it would be....Writing your own external systems! Yes AWS gives you lots of services and capability but until you learn to chain them together your just semi-cool. Trust me the first time you start writing hooks and integrations to go between AWS and other systems you will understand what I am saying. Before you connect those dots it's like you are playing around with single planets in a universe. Then when you make the connection you suddenly see the multitude of planets and stars and paths you can use to connect more things and suddenly it went from a single planet to the universe.
So I would like to leave you with a few thoughts be you an AWS person or a google pro. The clouds are full of infinite possibilities and unless we take off the blinders and ask "what if" we will never truly grasp the power that has come into existence. Gone are the days of waiting for racks of equipment or maintaining huge data centers. Cloud has enabled that inner brain child the ability to focus on building the next cool thing without having to wait months to unleash it on the world. So go build the next cool thing!
For starters, most of the services are not complete entities unto themselves. You will find that although they provide certain aspects to each service they don't always do everything you would want. A good example would be the CodePipeline service. Although it's neat and allows you to easily deploy services and code it lacks enterprise scale when you want to develop CI/CD out of the box. This isn't to say that you can't add on the bits and pieces that are needed. In fact, I think this is one of the most important pieces of the entire structure. I would commend AWS on the factor that they develop something enough without overdoing it and making it impossible for everyone else out there to adapt it to their needs.
Next is the understanding of how different services can interact with other services. A good example of this is the CloudFormation. Before the recent additions it seemed impossible to have manageable templates without having to go overboard in adding things to the template. If you did this how was your template truly dynamic? The simple answer was that it was not possible until the additions. Adding things like macros and my favorite addition the custom resource. The custom resource allowed me to suddenly change things that were not exposed, well as of yet, for the template language. A couple of examples of that would be RDS log exporting and setting a custom expiration on CloudWatch log groups that were automatically created after you enabled said logs.
The last item is the best of course and it would be....Writing your own external systems! Yes AWS gives you lots of services and capability but until you learn to chain them together your just semi-cool. Trust me the first time you start writing hooks and integrations to go between AWS and other systems you will understand what I am saying. Before you connect those dots it's like you are playing around with single planets in a universe. Then when you make the connection you suddenly see the multitude of planets and stars and paths you can use to connect more things and suddenly it went from a single planet to the universe.
So I would like to leave you with a few thoughts be you an AWS person or a google pro. The clouds are full of infinite possibilities and unless we take off the blinders and ask "what if" we will never truly grasp the power that has come into existence. Gone are the days of waiting for racks of equipment or maintaining huge data centers. Cloud has enabled that inner brain child the ability to focus on building the next cool thing without having to wait months to unleash it on the world. So go build the next cool thing!
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