How to successfully navigate your way in Cloud Computing and Virtualization Technology

In a digital economy, data is money. Which is why, cloud computing has become critical for organisations, who are now increasingly seeking the skills of trained professionals in this domain

Cloud Computing and Virtualization is an up and coming field of specialization that has radically changed the way businesses operate. Cloud Computing refers to the storage of information and application in remote servers. ‘Is it backed up on the cloud?’ is a common question that is heard around offices now.

Many organisations are switching to cloud servers for several reasons. Clouds servers are protected from hardware crashes and allow access to data from anywhere. Because cloud services operate at scale and can set up massive data servers, they are able to operate at much lower operating costs.

Cloud computing marks a sea change in not just computing technology, but also computing philosophy. Before cloud computing, the software was locally installed in system hardware. Hence, software was something you could own. With cloud computing, you no longer have to own the software; you can just use a cloud version of it. This led to the evolution of the conventional belief around software as a service.

An abstraction of cloud computing is the advent of virtualization technologies. Virtualization is the use of a virtual work environment that is logically separated from the underlying hardware. It sounds quite technical. But let’s break it down.

An example of this would be if we have a system that runs windows. We don’t have a problem with Windows. We like Windows for watching movies, listening to music, and we don’t want to switch. However, we need an Ubuntu system for the work we have to do. In that case, a solution would be to install a Virtual Machine (VM) on our computer. The system would let us log in and would feel exactly like we’re working on Ubuntu while we’re in the VM, but then we could close the VM and retain our Windows OS.

So how does this impact the industry? The main usage of Virtualization techniques is in cloud computing. It shields the business from expensive server costs, software upgrades, and hardware risks and maintenance expenses. With the use of virtualization, companies can allow the application of software, which is housed by third parties.

The big question is: How do we envision a career in cloud computing and Virtualization technologies? The good news is that the field of cloud computing and virtualization is massive, offering numerous opportunities. Here are some of the top skill-sets that are coveted for cloud engineers:

● Cloud Security: A lot of people were initially hesitant on migrating to cloud because the platform was new and security issues loomed over its future. However, since then, cloud computing has gotten a lot more secure. For many companies, the protection of proprietary information is the deciding factor for moving to the cloud. This is an indication of how important a cloud security engineer is.

● Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence: Cloud servers often contain millions of terabytes of information and rely on dynamic allocation of resources. These algorithms use Machine Learning heavily and are by themselves, a triumph of technological innovation. The market for ML and AI is poised to grow from USD 1.41 billion in 2017 to USD 8.81 billion in 2022, which marks a 44% compound year-on-year growth.

● Cloud Migration: As more and more businesses move their application to the cloud, the expertise of cloud migration supports a whole new industry. For organizations who believe that data is money, there are few more important considerations than ensuring the efficiency of data management.

● Virtualization engineer: A virtualization engineer builds the VM framework, troubleshoot, and owns the back end. You can choose between hardware virtualization, OS virtualization, Server virtualization, and many other sub-specializations.

To survive in this diverse environment of cloud computing, you need to strengthen your skills around a particular sub-category. This helps you find your niche and cement your success. The first step to any career is to find out as much as you can. Then, find your specialization. You can do this by taking introductory lectures of these courses and figuring out what naturally interests you. Many students develop strong skills by taking free courses on Coursera. UPES’ partnership with Coursera enables students to access 3900+ free courses. These courses help students find out more at no cost and marks the beginning of many stellar careers.

At UPES, we have devised a perfect curriculum, comprising global expertise, practical knowledge, industry application, and novel pedagogy that trains students to not only develop their skills but also to develop as professions. This has been made possible with our strong industry connections and the wide pool of talent bases that our professors bring to the table. For more information, check out https://www.upes.ac.in/course/btech-computer-science-engineering-hons-with-specialization-in-ai-machine-learning