Tag: cloud careers

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IT Infrastructure Job Descriptions

Cloud Integrator Job Description

Cloud Integrator Job Description
Cloud Integrator Job Description

Use our template to create a compelling and comprehensive Cloud Integrator job description to attract top talent.

In the fast-paced realm of IT, the role of a Cloud Integrator is increasingly vital for companies embracing the cloud revolution. Let’s explore the responsibilities, qualifications, job outlook, and salary insights of this pivotal position.

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What is Cloud Integration?

Before delving into the intricacies of the Cloud Integrator role, it’s essential to grasp the concept of cloud integration. Cloud integration refers to the process of connecting different cloud-based applications, data, and services within an organization’s IT infrastructure. This integration facilitates seamless communication and data exchange between various cloud platforms and on-premises systems, optimizing efficiency and productivity.

Also read our article about IT Infrastructure: components, job profiles, and best practices

Why Use Cloud Integration?

Cloud integration solutions have emerged to address critical business needs, aiming to dismantle data silos, enhance connectivity, and optimize overall business processes. These solutions serve as a response to the imperative of sharing data among various cloud-based applications and unifying information components seamlessly.

The rising popularity of cloud integration parallels the widespread adoption of Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions. Surveys indicate that over 90 percent of enterprises now embrace a multi-cloud strategy. For example, SaaS usage is projected to surpass traditional product delivery methods.

Moreover, the prevalence of hybrid environments, combining both SaaS and on-premises applications, underscores the growing demand for advanced cloud data integration techniques. As businesses navigate this hybrid landscape, the necessity for robust cloud integration solutions becomes increasingly evident, facilitating smooth operations and enabling organizations to leverage the full potential of their data resources.

Also read our Cloud Architect Job Description


Cloud Integrator Job Description: Responsibilities

What does a cloud integrator do?

Firstly, Cloud Integrators lead the charge in seamlessly migrating company networks and IT assets into cloud environments. Their responsibilities also extend beyond migration to enhancing accessibility, backup, and connectivity.

Migration and Integration: Cloud Integrators lead the charge in migrating company networks and IT assets into cloud environments, enhancing accessibility, backup, and connectivity.

Technology Implementation: They also implement cutting-edge cloud technologies like Amazon Web Services (AWS), public cloud, or hybrid cloud, seamlessly integrating them into existing IT and network processes.

Testing and Deployment: From virtualized environments to live deployments, Cloud Integrators ensure the smooth transition of cloud integration projects, rigorously testing for performance and reliability.

Innovation: Designing tailored cloud-based solutions for telecom providers, Cloud Integrators drive technological innovation in the industry.

Troubleshooting: Armed with expertise in the latest 5G and cloud-based telecom technologies, they also troubleshoot and resolve complex issues, ensuring seamless operations.

Also discover the 3 cloud specialists companies will chase

Qualifications & Skills Required

To excel in this multifaceted role, Cloud Integrators must possess a solid educational background in computing, computer science, or programming. Equally important is hands-on experience, typically three to five years, with cloud infrastructures in real-world settings. Educational Background: A bachelor’s degree in computing, computer science, or programming lays the groundwork for aspiring Cloud Integrators.

Experience: Typically, three to five years of hands-on experience with cloud infrastructures in real-world settings is preferred.

Technical Proficiency: Mastery in networking, data center management, CEE, SDN, and virtualization layer is essential. Proficiency in programming languages such as Java, Python, Bash, JavaScript, and PowerShell is advantageous.

Language Proficiency: Fluency in the primary language spoken in the target destination may be required for international opportunities.

Job Outlook: Traditional Employment vs. Freelancing

Traditionally, telecom companies employed Cloud Integrators on a full-time basis. However, the landscape is evolving, with freelance opportunities gaining prominence. Freelance Cloud Integrators enjoy greater flexibility in work hours and client selection.

While telecom companies traditionally hired Cloud Integrators on a full-time basis, the trend is shifting towards freelance roles, offering professionals greater flexibility in work hours and client selection.

Salary Insights

How much does a Cloud Engineer make?

Average Salary: In full-time employment, Cloud Integrators earn an average of €70,000/ €80,000 per year..

Experience Matters: Experienced Cloud Integrators command higher salaries, with up to a 34% increase above the average.

Freelance Opportunities: Freelance Cloud Integrators can earn significantly higher hourly rates compared to their full-time counterparts.

Are you looking for IT mission opportunities in the Tech and IT sectors on a freelance or permanent basis? Mindquest can help you find your next IT mission opportunity. Find your next mission by browsing our freelance and permanent vacancies available on our digital recruitment platform.

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About us Featured Podcast Interviews

A Data Centre Migration Is About Technology and People

A Data Centre Migration Is About Technology and People
Sarah Lean (Techielass), Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, discusses getting into community relations and shares tips for a successful data centre migration.

Sarah Lean, aka Techielass, is a Scotland-based IT infrastructure, ops, and sys admin expert and Azure community evangelist. The founder of the Glasgow Azure User Group, Sarah works as a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft and blogs, tweets and has her own YouTube channel. She discusses, cloud careers, how you can get into community relations. What makes a successful data centre migration, and how Data Centre Migration is about technology and people.

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Interested in cloud careers? You might also enjoy our interview about how to become an Azure MVP.

How did you get started in tech?

I started off in a Sys Admin role, so I was a helpdesk engineer doing morning password resets for everybody, fishing out bits of broken paper from their printers, and stuff like that. I worked my career through those various different roles. In the UK, we call helpdesk roles first-level roles and then second-level is the support engineers that go out to people’s desks. Third-level is when you get to design systems for customers.

So, I basically went through those support levels within my career and just built up lots of experience both internally and externally. I was in companies where they just had a small IT department and they didn’t understand what IT departments did and how crucial they were. And then I also worked for managed service providers, dedicating myself to various different customers, etc.

How did you eventually become a Microsoft cloud advocate and a prominent figure in the Azure community?

I kind of fell into the community role because I wanted to learn Azure and there were no user groups in Scotland. I think the closest user group to me at the time was in London. Which is obviously not something you want to do it you finish working on Wednesday night; go down to London to user group and then come back up to your work the next day. It’s obviously not logistically feasible, so I basically started the Glasgow Azure user group to fulfil my need. Basically, to learn Azure and find out where everybody else was fitting this into the on-prem and cloud worlds.

And yeah, I kind of fell into running the user group and then started speaking at events. People were like “you need to speak at events and share your story and journey”. Which I didn’t want to do. But then I fell into it and; before I knew it; I was getting headhunted to become a cloud advocate at Microsoft.

It definitely hasn’t been a planned evolution in my career, if I’m going to be brutally honest about it. But one that I’m really enjoying and has given me some excellent experiences of travelling to different parts of the world and doing some amazing stuff and meeting some amazing people in the community as well.

What does the cloud advocate position entail?

My role can be quite varied. A summary of my job is to help others find out how to use Microsoft Technologies. Whether that be by telling the story in a simplified manner, maybe in a blog post or a video that kind of connects the dots between. For example, what your on-prem system looks like and what your cloud system would look like.

I’m sure we’ve all read some official documentation on various different products. Not just Microsoft products, and not understood what they were talking about. Being able to digest that into a way that makes sense for everybody. Whether that be someone who’s a project manager or someone who has 100 years of experience in IT, and being able to get that story across to them is something that I do. So, my day can be quite varied.

It can be creating videos, creating blogs, doing podcasts… Or it can be just playing with technology, or creating new Microsoft Learn content as well. There are lots of different facets, and there are lots of different things I can do throughout the day. So it can be quite fun. And obviously, Covid has stopped me from travelling, so that would have been a big part of my job had we not had a pandemic. But we’re making it work.

Besides being a cloud advocate for Microsoft, you also have a personal blog and do a weekly update on YouTube as Techielass. How do the two intertwine? Do you usually post work-related stuff, separate both worlds, or a mix of both?

I think it’s a bit of both to be honest. Because a lot of people know me as Techielass and from before I was a cloud advocate, through my blog. Some things like my weekly update on YouTube was something that I actually started in anticipation for this job. Because I knew I would have to be on camera or I knew I’d have to do some presentations for this job.

I started that weekly update nearly two years ago now, to basically get more familiar with looking at the camera and being able to connect to it and doing all the things that go around video production and so that that’s kind of interlinked. Although it’s become a kind of side project because I just enjoy doing that kind of medium as well.

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My blog is sometimes intertwined with my job. You’ll find me, you know, blogging about random things that I find. I’ve been supporting my husband and working from home lately. So there’s some random support ticket type questions he’s asked me that I’ve blogged about, because I know he’s going to ask me in about 6 weeks’ time. And I’m not going to remember how I did it, so yeah, there’s various different things on my blog.

So yeah, my blog kind of intertwines with my job, but it’s not necessarily always about my job.

Is there anything in particular that you like to blog about within the world of Azure?

I think I’ve tried to specialise in data centre migrations. I think we’ve probably all been involved in an on-prem data centre migration. And I’ve tried to take some of that experience and that knowledge and transfer it into how you would actually migrate to the cloud.

So, you’ll find me talking a lot about migrating. I tend to talk more about the processes around that nowadays rather than the technology because I think that’s a part of the journey that a lot of people struggle with. We can understand the technology quite easily, I think. But trying to put that into practice; how you think about things like training your staff; and how you change that culture within your organization; how do start the project for your migration…

So, I talk a lot about data centre migrations and, although I talk a lot about the culture and the process around it. You’ll find me talking about Azure migrate quite a bit and intertwining that into how you actually do your data centre migration. So that’s kind of my specialty, what a lot of people reach out to me and ask about.

What are the biggest mistakes being made in this data centre migration to the cloud, especially now that some companies might be rushing their transition because of the pandemic?

I think lots of people forget to actually assess what they have inside their on-prem data centre right now. They want to get to the actual delivery part. They want to get to put some resources in Azure, and they want to prove the value and say “we’ve completed that project”. And, like you say, some have been rushing because of Covid and the challenges that it’s thrown up.

I always try and say: take a step back, have a look at what’s in your environment. Try and understand not only the technology in your environment, but also what your staff needs are. So, your technology is going to have a bunch of needs when you move it to the cloud. Things are maybe not even going to be able to be moved to the cloud because they’re legacy. Or they’re far too complex, etc.

But what about the the staff within your environment as well? Do people know how to use Azure once you’ve moved into that? I think it that can often be a stumbling block as well. I’ve seen some customers who bring in third-party companies to do the migration. They move all the technology and then that third-party company leaves. The staff don’t have any clue on how to support the things that are now in Azure.

And before you know it, they’ve got into this situation where they think that the cloud is rubbish. Because the staff haven’t been able to support it because they themselves haven’t been supported in learning it. That’s why I always say that a data centre migration is about technology and people, so make sure you’re investing in the staff within your IT department.

Also, make sure you’re looking towards the end users, the people that use these applications that are in your data centre. Do you know how they use them? Is this an opportunity to ditch some of the ones that they hate? Is it that time to look at new solutions?

So, technology and people are the things you should be thinking about in your data centre migration.

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What advice would you give to other IT specialists who might want to get into community relations and advocacy?

If you want to get into the community space, try and do it in your spare time. I know that’s a big ask, because we probably don’t have a lot of spare time, (I definitely don’t have a lot of spare time myself), but it’s definitely a job you have to have a passion for because it’s very different from the technology world, from being a consultant, from being an engineer.

There are so many facets to it. I do things in marketing, I do video editing, I do image creation. I’m a bit of a designer occasionally. I’m also a technical writer. I have to be a presenter.

There’s a ton if things before I even get to the technology. Sme days might I don’t even touch any of the technology because I’m in things like Adobe Creative Cloud, so that’s a big change.

If you’re not ready to give up the toolbox, if you’re not ready to give up playing with the technology. Then it’s not something for you right now, and that’s why I say do it in your spare time, because, if you find that and you enjoy doing these things, if you enjoy doing podcasts, if you enjoy doing videos you enjoy doing the blogging, you’ll naturally find that you’ll progress more and more to that and away from being hands on the tools as such.

I see a lot of people wanting the glamour, but they don’t realise that there’s a lot of time where you’re actually not touching technology. But it is a great job. It has offered me fantastic opportunities , but I think a lot of people need to be aware of the fact that there’s so much to it and it’s not just talking about tech all the time.

And your advice for the larger IT community?

Besides that, just support people who are creating content, whether that be people like myself that do it as a job or whether it be people doing it as a hobby. It definitely means a lot, even if it’s just a small like on a YouTube video or a retweet on Twitter. That means a whole load to us as content creators.

So, definitely support people when they do that, because it can make a massive difference. That 10-minute video could have taken me like 3 days to create so that small little like on a YouTube video means the world to me and it means that I actually spend my time valuably.

Support the content creators out there.

Check out more of our interviews from our podcast episodes.

For more cloud careers and Azure tips, make sure to follow Sarah on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn or through the Techielass blog.

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About us Podcast Interviews

On Learning Azure IoT and Being an Active Member of the Community

On Learning Azure IoT and Being an Active Member of the Community
John Lunn, aka Johnnychipz, discusses the benefits of being an active member of the Azure community and how he learned Azure IoT.

John Lunn, also known as Jonnychipz, is a Welsh Azure MVP and MCT working as a technical architect at BT Enterprise. An organiser of the Welsh Azure User Group and an avid vlogger, John discusses the benefits of being an active member of the Azure community and how he learned Azure IoT. 

Interested in cloud careers? Learn more about How to Become an Azure MVP.

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What made you go into Microsoft Technologies and cloud architecture?

think when you go into business you predominantly work with Microsoft Technologies, more often than not. I kind of cut my teeth in IT on that side of the fence, which was very much Microsoft focused. So, I guess that, when I took that additional career step into the world of consultancy and kind of specialized in a particular area; in my case it was unified comms when I first started in that world; Microsoft was a natural steppingstone.

I’ve dealt with it for a number of years now. I knew my way around it. I was comfortable with it. So developing those softer skills like peaking to customers and other clients and helping other people understand the technology, or yeah, or being parachuted into a completely burning disaster of a problem. You soon learn the technologies at quite a deep level. You learn quite quickly what you can and can’t do.

So, yeah. I suppose I kind of edged myself gently into the world of consultancy and architecture. Now I find myself as a technical architect working on predominantly Azure and Microsoft focused solutions for customers. It’s been quite a long career and I’ve delved into a number of different areas. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’ve learned so much throughout that time.

Cloud careers are evolving very rapidly. What’s your approach to keeping up with emerging trends?

As an individual, I’m constantly thinking: where are we going with technology? What’s next? Not just for my own interests and keep the passion and the interest in my career. But also: where can I add the most value? The company that I work for — how can I help them see and visualise those innovative ideas, projects and solutions?

For a number of years, I’ve been speaking internally with my management team, talking about where we’re going as an industry, and, clearly, for some time now, it’s been around IoT, edge data, machine learning, AI… All of those kinds of technologies that are going to drive innovative solution design.

So, I’ve been on a personal quest. I’ve dabbled in areas over the years. I’ve done bits and pieces and I keep telling people I know enough to be dangerous. That’s my stock answer. I know enough to dig in and make a little bit of noise. But I take it at my own personal development journey to try and dig into that in a bit more detail. IoT was one of those areas that I jumped into.

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Why Azure IoT in particular? How did you go about diving into the area?

I guess I wanted to understand right the way from that physical thing. That physical device and object, the microcontroller that is inside that device, to the LEDs and resistors and buttons. How do those things get made and then what is the code that sits on that microprocessor? How do I develop that code to then enable me to take that sensor information?

Maybe there’s, you know, some optical, temperature or humidity sensor. The common things that you find in IoT projects. How do I take that, read it with some code and send that up to this thing called the cloud? And then what do I do with that?

So, I took it upon myself to try and look at some pet projects to build this, to start looking at microcontrollers, put them in, etc. I literally got myself a 3D printer and started printing off all these random designs I made myself.

There’s the engineering mentality if you’re really starting off at the maker side of things. So, I went on this journey of learning all of these kinds of disciplines. It’s really about understanding all of these little components that go into what makes an IoT solution. And I’m really trying to understand how you join the dots between these various features and components within Azure to make those solutions.

And it’s been, more of a labour of love than anything for work. I’ve met some fantastic people out in the community that have helped me understand things, that I’ve learned from, that I’ve taken ideas from.

And going down on that journey, you learn so much about those areas of Azure that maybe you’re not using on a frequent basis. You know, you start with this high-level view of the world. I try and dig down deep as much as I can in as many different areas so that hopefully I get a little bit more of a clearer picture as to how and why you can use these things.

Do you think a hands-on approach to learning new technologies is better than a theoretical or certifications-based one?

I mean everybody is different. I think for me hands-on works well. Certification is a great way to go, especially if it’s something relatively new and unknown.

So, for example, the AZ 220 exam is the Azure IoT developer speciality exam from Microsoft. And that’s what I was going for at the time.

There are certain ways people can study for exams as Azure IoT exam AZ 220. It’s very much theory-based where you read the Microsoft docs and understand things. And you know, if you do enough Microsoft exams, you can kind of work out which questions they are going to ask you. You get to learn in an almost parrot-like fashion the areas that particular exam is going to cover. And that’s great, there have been exams where I’ve kind of just done in that way. You go in and you’ve learned something over a crammed week or two.

But the problem is that, later down the road, if you’ve not actually done anything physical or hands-on or done it yourself, I found that I forgot it.

For the Azure IoT exam, I took it relatively slowly because I wanted to absorb it and be part of it for a while. Basically, because it was so much fun. I was just having so much fun doing this tinkering and making and, like I say, it hasn’t stopped.

So yeah, I think certification; as Azure IoT exam; is definitely a great way of identifying the areas that you need to learn. But how you learn those is up to you. Everybody’s got their own style and, for me, slow and steady and hands-on sinks in more and I’m able to retain that information for longer and apply it to other things.

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You are an active member of the online Azure community. You go by the nickname of Jonnychipz, and you blog and host a weekly vlog covering Azure-related news and topics. How did you become such an active part of the community? What were the beginnings like?

I had always been on the periphery, the edges of the community. And I guess I never really understood what community meant. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to go to some great Microsoft events globally, and I’ve met some brilliant people. But I had never really been actively involved in the community.

But then COVID hit, and we were all locked up in our houses. I got the time to actually focus and build myself a little bit of an office space. Before, I was always out on the road, driving up and down motorways in the UK or running the kids around.

So, as we all had this additional time, I thought, OK, this is an opportunity for me to try and focus on public learning and the community a bit more. In hindsight, I didn’t really know what I was doing when I first started. I set a blog up and it was jonnychips.com, you know? And I started putting out some blogs. I started doing the 100 days of cloud, just trying to show my public learnings and hopefully give a bit back.

What does your new role in the community bring into your life? What have been the best moments so far?

Well, it sounds a bit cliched, but there have been so many different situations that were super fun and where I thought I would have never been I had not turned to the community. Things like joining and setting up and helping organise a user group – part of what I do is helping organise the Welsh Azure User Group, and we run that as a monthly virtual session.

We’ve had so many fun moments over that, just from the guys and gals that help organise the weekly or biweekly calls that we have, through to the events themselves and just the fun engagement from other people in the community. There’s been so many comedy moments and just good general laughs over things.

IoT has been one of the standout things for me. The people I’ve met in in the world of IoT, from members of the community through to the advocacy team at Microsoft themselves, I’ve managed to speak to one or two of those over the last few months. They’re all super people. Really clever, intelligent, passionate people just putting stuff out.

You forge these new friendships without you realising it. You’re virtually speaking to people across Twitter and you’re having that banter, you jump on a live Twitch stream and have a little bit of fun.

So, it’s probably safe to say that there’s not really been one best moment so far. I think the best is yet to come. I’m really looking forward to getting back to the face-to-face meetups, getting back out there to two events where I get to meet some of these great people and hopefully have a coffee or a beer and a bit of lunch or something with them. I see that being a super fun time.

Check out more of our interviews from our podcast episodes.

For more cloud careers, Azure and Azure IoT tips, make sure to follow John on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube or through Jonnychipz.com.

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About us Featured Podcast Interviews

How to Become an Azure MVP

Gregor Suttie, Microsoft MVP and MCT, working as an Azure Architect at Dutch firm Intercept, discusses his career in IT and how one can become an Azure MVP.
Gregor Suttie, Microsoft MVP and MCT, working as an Azure Architect at Dutch firm Intercept, discusses his career in IT and how one can become an Azure MVP.

Gregor Suttie is a Glasgow-based Microsoft Azure MVP and Microsoft Certified Trainer working as an Azure Architect at Dutch firm Intercept. He helps run the Glasgow Azure User Group and is a prominent Azure family and community member. He recently stopped by Mission Control Center to discuss cloud careers and how to become an Azure MVP.  

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How did you get started in IT and with Microsoft technologies?

I have been in IT for more than years, so it was quite a while ago. I was one of those people who don’t know what they’d like to do in life when they are at school. But a high school friend encouraged me to try doing some computer programming, and I really enjoyed it. After school, we went on to do some college-level computing and programming courses, and I got a part-time doing AS/400 at a bus company.

After that, I went to Paisley University just to the West of Glasgow to do a one year-degree in media technology, which is slightly computer and programming-related even though it sounds like media. When I finished there, I applied for a developer role and gained some Microsoft experience but nothing too deep. I started learning HTML from Notepad, believe it or not. That was back in the day when HTML was the first thing. Using notepad to code was interesting. I was even learning Java in Notepad as well. It wasn’t even an IDE. So that’s kind of how we got into baseline Microsoft technologies, just using basic programming.

I then got my very first junior role at a software company: Interactive Developments in Sterling. And I went in there as a junior with absolutely zero experience, so it was quite frightening but really exciting at the same time. I was really lucky there was a very senior lady who was the senior dev, and she took me under her wing and basically showed me how to write code properly and test it, how to deploy it and, more importantly, write good tests to the code that I was trying to write, which wasn’t very good at that point, but she kept me right. And that’s kind of how I started. I was basically doing VB 6 in that job for three years, learning VB 6 under the wing of a good teacher. Very lucky to have someone mentor me like that.

And then you became one of the first 50 Microsoft Certified Solutions Developers (MCSD) in the world. How did that happen, how did it feel?

Yeah. After about three years, we were moving away from VB 6 and towards Microsoft .NET, so I was learning that during the day at my job, and at night as well.

It was the first time that they had ever offered the MCSD exams. I think it was two exams, and I went for them and passed them on the first attempt, which was really cool. But mainly because I was doing a lot of studying and hands-on.

I got a letter signed by Bill Gates together with a copy of the software saying that was one of the first 50 people in the world to have passed that exam. I don’t actually still have it, as it got lost when I moved house, but I got the Visual Studio box with all the posters and all the CDs in there signed by Bill Gates, which was exciting.

Read a very exhaustive Azure developer job description.

You are also an Azure MVP. How can one become an Azure MVP?

Three or four years ago, you used to be able to nominate yourself for the distinction. But they got rid of self-nomination because so many people were nominating themselves, so they just couldn’t cope with the number of nominees. They changed it to make it that you had to be nominated by someone from Microsoft or an existing MVP. So, I asked someone to nominate me and eventually happened.

It’s all basically based on community contributions. How to become an Azure MVP? The main thing is that you shouldn’t try to become an MVP. You should just do what you do, and it will eventually come along. You have to do blog posts, talks, help out through user groups, all that kind of good stuff. If you’re doing that on a regular basis, then someone might nominate you.

Once you are nominated, you have a form to fill in with all the contributions that you’ve made over the last 12 months. You fill that out and send it off, and the person who deals with the form contacts you within three months just to let you know if everything is okay with your form.

And then it basically goes into the ether. You don’t hear anything until you get awarded. On the 1st of every month, they come out and communicate the seven or eight people in the UK who have now been awarded the MVP. That’s kind of the short version of how it works.

I couldn’t believe it when I got it. It’s probably my biggest achievement so far.

As someone who knows well how to become an Azure MVP, what’s your advice for those who are just starting out in their cloud careers? What certifications should they pursue?

I always ask people: what are you interested in? Sometimes it’s worth trying to write the Venn diagram and put in circles what you like. So, are you a developer or are you more of an ops person? Can you code? Would you like to code, or not? That’s kind of how you start.

What’s your background? Some people don’t have any background and they’re just learning from the very start. If you want to learn from the very start, it’s probably best to start off with the Azure Fundamentals exam. In fact, I always recommend that you start off with the Azure Fundamentals exam because it will give you a nice introduction to the Azure exams. It will also give you the confidence that you have managed to pass a fairly tricky exam.

If you’re new to the cloud, the Azure Fundamentals exam is actually a little tricky because it covers quite a lot of things. If you’ve got experience in Azure, fair enough, but, if you’re new to it, I would start with the fundamentals. And that goes for all of the courses.

These days, there’s quite a lot of demand for Azure administrators, people who can set up all the Azure resources. So, the Azure Administrator certification is quite a good one to go after. But other areas like Azure Power Apps are becoming very popular as well. Power Apps is a low-code platform, so it’s nice for people who aren’t massive programmers but are into coding.

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Go to Microsoft Learn and click on the certifications link on there. Have a look around and try and figure out what you are best at.

Also, the online Azure community online is amazing. If you go on Twitter for example, under the hashtag #AzureFamily, you will find lots of amazing Azure people. If you want to get started with Azure and got questions on how to get started or even about how to become an Azure MVP, then definitely please do reach out to me or reach out to anyone in the #AzureFamily and they will definitely help you. Don’t be shy if you’re stuck with anything. Reach out and someone will help.

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Your background is in development, and then you moved into DevOps. What was it like to be, all of a sudden, in the middle of development and operations teams?

It was interesting. I worked at a large bank two jobs ago, and the developers were on one side of the fence and the operation teams were on the other and they had nothing in between. And I couldn’t really understand this. So, what we would do is work on a two-week Sprint, and then we would build a code tester code and I would pass it over to the OPS team who would then deploy it, but we would never really speak to each other, and I thought this is really bizarre. “How does this work? This can’t be a good relationship.”

So, I got to know the operations team. They were in New York and we were in Glasgow. I got really friendly with them and kind of started to bridge the gap; and I created a role for myself where I sat in between the two teams. I made sure that the code was all built and tested. Then I could help pass it over to ops team and show them how to deploy it correctly because before that they would just deploy it. It would break because there was no real handover.

Anyone in the operations team could pick up and deploy the code, and the devs had an idea of what documentation to make. It was quite an interesting role. Before I did that, there were two separate teams who didn’t talk to each other. It was a good way to kind of bring the operations and dev people together.

Now you are an Azure Architect at Intercept. What are you working on as part of your role?

We are helping independent software vendors (ISVs) from all around Europe move from on-premise to Azure. The projects that we’re working on these days are basic setup designs for companies who want to move to the cloud or that are already in the cloud and want some extra governance.

We design it, we implement it, and we also look after it. So, we’re doing managed services. I’m really loving working here. Plus, it’s really interesting to work for a foreign company. I’m based in the United Kingdom, in Scotland, and I work for a company in the Netherlands. So, it has been really good fun.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, a lot of companies have been rushing to migrate to the cloud. What are the biggest mistakes you are seeing being made as a result of this hastiness?

I do some workshops on governance and Azure, so basically setting up things correctly from the get-go. And sometimes we see customers who have started in Azure and have created resource groups and have started deploying stuff but there’s no governance in place. There are no rules, no naming conventions. There are no limits to what you can deploy and who can deploy what.

When I deliver my governance workshops, it’s quite interesting to see people who are like “Oh, I didn’t know you could do that.” It’s just things like stopping people from being able to deploy huge virtual machines. stopping people from leaving things running. In the cloud, you can spin up things quickly, but some of them can cost quite a lot of money. You can burn through your credits and your money quite quickly in the cloud if you’re not careful.

I have also seen some poor naming conventions where everything is just random names and it’s really hard to work out who deployed what and when and what. It’s quite funny when you see a mess and you’ve got to go and tidy it up. I don’t often see that, but one or two customers have kind of run before they can walk.

So, governance is mainly the thing that people need to keep an eye on. It’s easier to do it from the start. You can certainly put governance in once you’ve got your Azure environment running, but it’s just nicer and easier to do it at the start.

Check out more of our interviews from our podcast episodes.

For more tips on cloud careers and how to become an Azure MVP, make sure to follow Gregor on Twitter and LinkedIn and don’t forget to check out his blog.

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About us Featured Podcast Interviews

You need to share your knowledge and not just keep it to yourself

Cloud solutions architect and Microsoft Azure MVP Karel De Winter discusses his career in IT and shares tips for advancing your cloud career.

An interview with Microsoft Azure MVP Karel De Winter to discuss his trajectory in IT and how to advance your cloud career.

Karel de Winter is a Belgian cloud solutions architect working at Azure Expert managed cloud services provider DexMach. He is passionate about helping others in the cloud community grow and develop their expertise. Whether it is on Twitter, on his blog, or at an industry event, Karel is constantly sharing news and resources that will help you make the most of the power of cloud.

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Check out more of our interviews from our podcast episodes.

Interview with Karel De Winter from Azure: How did you get started in technology?

I was about seven when I started to play around with some old computers. The first things you learn are the basic commands like DIR and CD. And, from that moment on, I just wanted to learn more about computers in general and what you could do with them. So, getting into IT was all about doing what I love to do and the things that I was playing around with. The hardware that was given to me by family, by neighbours; I was looking to improve that hardware, making all those things work together.

Then the Internet came and became this living thing. And a lot of things happened from there. I joined some local communities in Belgium and learned about a lot more besides computers. I learned a little bit of programming, I learned to build websites. It was just the beginning of the web, so it was all about playing around, building websites and making music and then putting the music on those websites.

That is how it all started. And now I have around 14 years of experience in IT. I have always worked with Microsoft partners, and every company I worked with had the possibility to try out the Microsoft products, to try new things, to test them, and then implement them together with customers.

Interview with Karel De Winter:What about Azure?

The same thing happened with Azure. The platform is about 10- or 11-years old right now, so I started to play with Azure in the very beginning. I got interested at a local community event. Somebody was showing something from Azure Storage; you could put your files on a storage account or you could run your SQL environments and servers on Azure.

I was curious about all those things and how they worked together. So, I got involved with the Azure community in Belgium and attended several sessions. And I immediately saw the benefit of cloud products. But I must say that, ten years ago, Azure was not the Microsoft Azure platform that we now know. A lot has changed since then. So, it was a lot of exploration and investigating what was possible, always learning new things through the process. That is how, throughout my career, I went from being a systems engineer to making cloud architectures and other related things.

Interview with Karel De Winter from Azure: And what are you up to these days?

My main focus so far has been on Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). But, since I started working at DexMach as a solutions architect, a lot of things have changed. Now I am focusing more on the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) side of things and everything around governance, making sure that we have a good landing zone and keep security in mind. Those are the things I now focus on.

Now I am designing architectures, but also doing a bit of pre-sales. Together with our team, we help to make proposals for customers so that they are having a clear understanding of the cost and architecture of the Azure environment. Aside from that, I’m also a competence lead, which means that I am responsible for all platform related projects and guidelines related to Azure. So, I am looking at, for example; how we can use Azure Stack HCI as a hybrid solution for our customers, or how we can standardize platform-as-a-service in Azure with Azure Functions, Logic Apps or Web Apps. Even Kubernetes comes into play when a customer wants to keep full control. I am making sure that everything is secure, that everyone who works in the team is on the same page (we have standards that we need to implement with every customer).

What is your advice for more junior Azure experts?

My number one piece of advice for junior Azure experts would be that learning is important. It is so important that you have to do it for the rest of your life. Especially because a lot is changing in cloud. It is going very, very quickly. So, if you are not learning day by day, six months later you are behind your competitors. You need to keep on learning and keep doing new things.

If you want to start with Azure, just go with Microsoft Learn. That’s a very good starting point. You have different paths you can follow. So, if you are a junior and you don’t know which area or which track you should go for, this is the way to go. You have the ability to sign up for free and have a complete Azure environment in a sandbox and see what is working for you. You can see if you are doing a lot of development things, or enjoying the web development part, or if you are an infrastructure guy like me. Or are maybe more into VMs, more into Kubernetes and managing all those things, networking, storage, etc. Just have a look at that.

Visit Microsoft Learn / Microsoft Docs

What about official certifications, what would you recommend focusing on?

You can’t learn everything in these times of digital revolution, there is just too much information. But when preparing for an official Microsoft you should start by looking at the PDF that’s on the page of the exam. There you will find the exam skills outline. All the topics covered in the exam are listed with some percentage at the end. And you should aim to learn by that percentage. The skills measured with the highest percentage must be also your highest learning priority and the biggest investment in time. That’s something I always do. My main focus will be on the biggest parts, and then, if I have time to go into a really deep dive, I will look into the other parts.

Learn more with our article: The Most Popular IT Certifications

What’s the best career advice you have been given?

Networking is important because, for example, if you are going for a job interview and they have two people with a very similar resume (same certificates and experience) but the one person knows somebody within the company or knows somebody that knows somebody — you know, they will be picked instead of the other one. I think networking is very important in every job. But not only in it. If you want to work at another place or you want to take a career step, it is very important that you know people and that you do some extra networking as well. Yeah.

Secondly, as you are becoming an expert, you need to share your knowledge and not just keep it to yourself. Sharing your expertise with people in your company or even online is very important because you show that you are doing things. You get on the radar of other people and other people. Create a blog or do a podcast or make a YouTube video. Just explain something simple. Get started sharing something you’ve learned, something you worked on, a project.

And the last thing: try to get involved in as many projects as you can. And don’t be shy to do some complex projects. Mostly you will be working in teams, so you will learn from other team members, from other people. Cloud is still very new, so nobody has 20 or 25 years of experience with it, as it happens with other technologies. Everybody is kind of new to the job. It is by doing that you will learn a lot. Making sure you have complex projects in which to get involved. That has worked very well for me in my career.

What would you do if you were not in IT?

That’s a good question. I think I would have a small company that gave mountain biking lessons because I love mountain biking. I imagine this little village in the mountains, where I would have a little shop full of mountain bikes. And I would give lessons, or give some tours. Yeah, that would be nice.

You can follow Karel on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Also, make sure to check out his blog.

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Growing your career: permanent & freelance IT Consultants

The 3 cloud specialists companies will chase

The 3 cloud specialists companies will chase
Let's discover what are the 3 cloud specialists companies will chase. What specific roles are going to be the most sought after?

Let’s discover what are the 3 cloud specialists companies will chase.  

Are you working in cloud or thinking of redirecting your career towards this rapidly expanding field? Well, you’re on the right track. About 83% of companies are expected to be in the cloud by the end of this year. That, coupled with the fact that the industry is experiencing a major skills shortage, means that greatness awaits those daring to venture into the cloudy unknown. Especially if you consider the increasing complexity of the cloud environment itself.

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Public, private and hybrid cloud

In the dawn of time, there was either the public or the private cloud. Then came the hybrid cloud, a mix of both public and private cloud that takes the best of both worlds.

Then, 2023 will be all about multi-cloud, the use of different cloud service providers to optimize business operations, lower costs and avoid vendor lock-in.  

Top 3 – Cloud specialists companies will chase

In a recent TechRepublic survey, over 67% of respondents said they’re currently using or planning to use services from multiple cloud vendors. If these stats hold true, the need for highly qualified cloud experts that can navigate the growing complexity will only increase.

So, what specific roles are going to be the most sought after? Nemertes Research CIO John Burke proposes the following three.

Cloud solution architect  

Firstly, ideally involved from the beginning in the design of a cloud strategy that suits the needs of the organization, a cloud architect is the one with the big-picture perspective. This is a vital attribute when pondering the strengths and disadvantages of different cloud providers and what workloads should be assigned to each one.    

Once the architecture is deployed, a cloud solution architect is responsible for monitoring its proper functioning and for looking into ways to optimize operations by continuously upgrading tools and services.

Cloud integration specialist 

Then, just to squeeze a bit more out of the architectural analogy, think of the cloud integration specialist as the construction manager. While the architect designs the building, the cloud integrator is in charge of ensuring its correct construction by managing and integrating the workflows of the many parties involved. In IT terms, that means integrating the myriad of tools, dataflows and workflows that collide in a multi-cloud environment.   

If you prefer being down in the trenches, involved in everyday operations, this might be the right role for you.     

Also read our article about Building the dream team for multi-cloud success

Cloud security specialist 

We’ve touched on this topic in other articles: when it comes to security, specialization is key. This is particularly true in a multi-cloud environment, where threats are especially difficult to detect and cauterize due to the disparities in response time and security tools that come from working with several vendors.

On top of that, and as we’ve seen in our cybersecurity predictions for 2020, the vulnerabilities and sheer amounts of data of the multi-cloud are just too many and too alluring for hackers to ignore. Attackers will be doubling their attempts to breach into company systems through the cloud. They will even leverage the cloud themselves to launch more cost-effective attacks with greater frequency. Rest assured — Cloud security experts will be in high demand.           

All in all, no matter what path you have chosen, or end up choosing in the world of cloud, this will be a land of opportunity for years to come.  

Also read ou articles: Data security : Is your cloud data secure? and Cybersecurity Careers Overview