Here's how you can ace discussing cloud computing technologies in a technical interview.
Navigating a technical interview can be daunting, especially when the topic shifts to cloud computing—a field that's both vast and intricate. To excel, you need to convey your knowledge confidently and comprehensively. Whether you're discussing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS), understanding the nuances of these models can set you apart. A solid grasp of cloud service models ensures you can discuss how they differ in terms of management, scalability, and the level of control they offer to users.
Start by ensuring you have a solid understanding of the fundamental concepts of cloud computing. This includes knowing the differences between public, private, and hybrid clouds. Public clouds are owned and operated by third-party service providers and deliver their computing resources like servers and storage over the Internet. Private clouds are used exclusively by a single business or organization, while hybrid clouds combine public and private clouds, allowing data and applications to be shared between them. Be prepared to explain how each model can benefit different types of applications and business needs.
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It is really important to understand all concepts when you are talking about cloud, the main features, the characteristics, differences, use cases, advantages and the main concerns that the customers usually have; with all this understanding you can act as a trusted advisor and give good recommendations and advise to your customers and let them make the better decisions.
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Equally important is to understand - Pricing Models Understanding the pricing models given by various public cloud providers and using the pricing calculator would understand the best provider and consumption model to choose. - Free tier Cloud providers can provide certain free credits to consume which can be used to build certain POCs and do test labs free of cost. - Premium Partnership options and benefits offered There could be premium partnership options with cloud providers that can be valuable in long run. - Well Architected Framework pillars Understanding the well architecture framework pillars gives a better understanding of how each provider is meeting them.
Be fluent in explaining the three main service models of cloud computing: IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. Infrastructure as a Service provides virtualized computing resources over the internet, Platform as a Service offers hardware and software tools over the internet, and Software as a Service makes software available via a third-party over the internet. Understanding these models allows you to discuss how developers can leverage cloud computing to build, deploy, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with the process.
Security is paramount in cloud computing. You should be able to articulate common security concerns such as data breaches, data loss, and insecure application programming interfaces (APIs). Discussing how encryption, identity and access management (IAM), and regular security audits can mitigate these risks will demonstrate your awareness of the importance of protecting data in the cloud. Also, be ready to talk about compliance with regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and how cloud providers must ensure their services are compliant.
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These are the key checkpoints to be reviewed - What is the nature of data being handled whether it is personal (PII), Health (PHI), Finance, Payment - What is the jurisdiction where your organization or customer operates - Understanding above two will give an indication of the compliance standards to be planned and implemented. - Data Classification Certain proprietary customer data cannot be on public cloud. Hence it is important to classify the data and understand the sensitivity to provision the appropriate storage destination.
Scalability is a key advantage of cloud computing, so you must be able to discuss how cloud services can be scaled up or down based on demand. This includes understanding auto-scaling, load balancing, and elastic computing resources. Explain how these features allow for handling varying workloads efficiently without over-provisioning resources, which can save costs and improve performance. Discussing real-world scenarios where scalability is crucial can help illustrate your points more effectively.
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In addition to Scalability below Well Architected Framework pillars should be reviewed for any cloud provider 1. Resilience which covers scalability, availability, reliability and fault tolerance 2. Operational excellence: Automate possibly everything including infrastructure and code deployment and continuous monitoring 3. Performance Efficiency: Usage of caching and edge computing to lower latencies and improve access speeds. Content delivery networks 4. Cost Optimization: Optimize costs wherever possible, existence of reserved and spot pricing. 5. Security: Having a strong IAM with MFA at core. Implementation of all technical controls for networking, asset storage, encryption. Employing RBAC, least previlege and need to know.
Having a conversation about disaster recovery is crucial when discussing cloud computing. You should understand and be able to explain how cloud-based disaster recovery plans can be more cost-effective and faster to implement than traditional on-premises plans. Talk about the importance of having geographically dispersed data centers that cloud providers use to ensure data redundancy and continuous availability. This knowledge shows that you understand how the cloud contributes to an organization's resilience strategy.
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Planning for DR. Some of the important points. Understanding the business sensitivity and criticality of the systems and data and their outage tolerance RTO and RPO objectives as defined in contract SLA and plan the below. - Classify the assets and data - Multi Zone , Multi region deployments as needed - Having appropriate backups to restore critical data during a disaster - Have regular mock drills for DR and Business continuity plan and regularly review and update the same - Seeking Senior Management intervention and guidance/help as needed.
Finally, it's beneficial to show your awareness of future trends in cloud computing. Discuss concepts like serverless computing, where developers can build and run applications and services without managing servers. Mention how technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are increasingly integrated into cloud services, enabling more sophisticated data analysis and automation. Demonstrating an understanding of where the industry is headed can show your potential employer that you're not just knowledgeable about current technologies but are also keeping an eye on future developments.
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You can use Generative AI extensively for the below - Code template generation for cloud infrastructure provisioning - Code generation for cloud functions in the required language. - Cognitive cloud services available as pretrained models to achieve a functionality (Text analytics, image and face analysis,vision, video, language understanding and translation, conversational AI, search, speech and other generative AI models). These are available as REST APIs which can be easily consumed or Integrated to your existing codebase using the provided SDKs.
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Knowing at a reasonable depth and breadth about the three major cloud providers, Amazon, Azure and Google. These public cloud providers are majorly adopted in the industry at varied proportion. Pick up the important category of compute, storage, Database services provided by each. As there 200+ services available for each provider mastering all may not be an option but understand the major services and try to map among the three providers. Have a cheat sheet to update this and review periodically.
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