Transcription
Welcome! In this video, we are going to talk about Cloud Administration skills for JSS members at Job Skills Share.
We have a lot of members taking IT support courses, and some people have already landed jobs. We have been doing this for 10 years, so we have many individuals who have achieved the goal of becoming IT professionals. However, they also want to move up in their careers.
We have many new members joining almost every week, starting from scratch, often coming from different careers or as students. The common question we get is, "I want to start as a cloud administrator." In this video, I am going to take a realistic approach for someone who is new to IT and just starting because they want to become a cloud administrator.
The first thing to consider is whether you are ready from a mindset level. Are you mentally prepared to learn technology? If you have already worked on that, then know that there is no position in IT where you can work normally, or let's say with less stress. I'm going to say "less stress" in a way that you're going to always have stress in IT, but "less stress" means you already know the basics.
If you're new to IT, I'm not going to go further without letting you know that you will need to know the IT basics and networking basics to become any IT professional. Whether it's a help desk position, a systems administrator, a network engineer, or a cybersecurity professional, you name it. If you work with systems and people, and that involves technology, you need to know the basics.
A lot of people don't talk about this; they just jump into cloud learning immediately. They tell people, "Look, you can get it that way; it is possible." In IT, everything is possible. But the same people then come to us for skills development, and we know they work for very big companies. They let us know that they need to learn about Active Directory, Windows Domain, and all that sort of stuff because nobody taught them. They got a job somehow because someone helped them out. Yes, that's possible, but again, you're just going to come back to the skills. You're going to come back to the basics.
So, the first step I’m going to talk about is the basics. If you are new to IT and have decided to become one, even for cloud administration, you have to start with the basics. So, what can you do in this case? You, as a member, can start with our Modern IT Support Program. Basically, that's going to take you three to four months to finish everything, including hands-on labs. You're going to learn about computers, networks, DHCP, DNS, and all that sort of stuff in a basic way.
Now, one of the beautiful things about this is that, one, you're going to understand the basics. The second thing is that you may realize that cloud administration positions are advanced. Usually, these are not something you can just go and start applying to, and people will start paying you about 80 to 100K immediately.
It doesn't make sense to a lot of people. People spend so much time in IT, and then someone who is brand new, with no clue how it works, is offered a hundred thousand. It just doesn't make too much sense to many. In some cases, people can do that. Like I said, people can land these jobs. Just understand that this doesn't mean you will perform well in these jobs. Again, you're going to be looking for skills.
If you are a person who says, "I don't want to work in IT support; I want to skip this and jump to cloud positions," you still need to learn the skills. That is my point right here. Whether you go with the jobs or not, the good thing is that if you cover the basics, then you can actually apply for IT support positions. That could be something you can start with for six or seven months and then move on into the cloud. Now you have some sort of background and experience as well.
If you don't want to do that, at least you learn the skills the right way, the correct way, the hands-on way. Then, at least when you go to these positions, even directly, it's not a big deal for you; it's not a big stress.
The second thing is learning about networking skills. Now, this could be for someone who wants to learn about servers in a deeper way. They want to know how servers are connected in companies. As a cloud administrator, they could have servers on-premises and then something in the cloud. If they tell me, "Hey, we got a domain controller or Active Directory on-site where the building is, and we got a cloud service, can you connect these two together?" If you don't know these skills, your stress level is going to go through the roof because you don't know this stuff.
This is why I will say that if you finish the basics, then you can go with the networking skills. I'm going to show you how our members can do this practically on our platform.
So, step one: basics are done. Then you have all the job opportunities right here for IT support. If you finish the networking skills, that means you can go for a junior systems administrator job or a junior network administrator job.
What are you doing right now? You're basically enabling yourself for many IT jobs in the market. You don't have to get stuck with the mindset that you just have to apply for cloud systems administrator positions. Again, this is very targeted. You're opening your whole job search in this area of IT.
You're going to love this because you can then look at any job description and say, "You know what? I like this; I don't like this." That's because you know these skills. And that, again, is not only for specific jobs in IT support or networking; that's for anything.
After this, you can go to cybersecurity, you can go to cloud administration, any level, any advanced level. Wherever they touch systems, you are good to go.
At this point, you're clear that you need the basics and some networking skills. Then, cloud learning or working in the cloud will become very easy. This is where you target the cloud basics and learn about the cloud: what it is, where we use it, and some labs around it.
This is usually a stage for someone who's been working in IT support for more than six months or a year. They say, "You know what? I'm just going to learn networking while I'm working so I can learn this stuff and then move into cloud learning directly from help desk." Yes, that's possible, and that's okay.
That's pretty much easy because at this point, you know how networking works and how domain controllers are connected in the system. You don't need to become a network engineer or a highly skilled systems administrator, but at least you should learn the networking skills before jumping into the cloud, even as a help desk technician.
You can switch from help desk to cloud easily because now you know how technology works. This could also apply to someone who's a sysadmin or network engineer. At this point, these individuals already have a lot of good skills and may have advanced knowledge on-premises.
However, even for them, they need to learn the basics of the cloud to have that mindset. There are many things they are used to in networking or server environments as sysadmins. They need to realize, "Oh wow, these are other services too that I can use and need to become familiar with."
This is again for many areas you are in right now in IT. You can come to it from scratch. This is for people who say, "No, I don't want to do this. I want to go straight here." You still need to learn the education to get to this stage.
In the cloud, we are going to start with, "What is cloud?" This is networks, blah blah blah, but we're not going to say, "What is DHCP?" We're not going to say, "What is DNS?" We're not going to say how things are connected from a network point of view.
This is why we say you need to know all this stuff because you're going to get stuck in your courses. Any other courses, if you go straight in, nobody's going to teach you the basics of how a computer works. This is where you're going to get stuck in any type of education system.
That is the main complaint we get from people: "Somebody got me into cloud, and boom, they just started with AWS and Azure, and everything is going above my head." So let's just cut that because we want to get things the right way, the realistic way.
Once the basics are done in cloud, then you know for sure, "Okay, what do I want to target? Do I want to target AWS or Azure or something else?" Mainly, it's going to be AWS or Azure, and that is where you need to make that decision.
For us, of course, we're going to target AWS because that's kind of like the main one, and after that, Azure as well. Then you will be able to come to a job like this, where it says "Junior AWS Cloud Systems Administrator." You click on it and then come down and look, "Okay, you know what? What are they saying over here?"
You can see that they are saying you need to provide customer service, cloud management, and all that sort of stuff. Here, they even put something like "experience with Azure" or "experience with AWS cloud services." They have some other skills requirements, like knowledge of Windows and Linux.
People put this stuff because that's the requirement. This is what people think you know. If you don't, then even if you start working somehow, you're going to start seeing this system, even in a virtual environment. You need to install Windows operating systems or Linux, and then you need to get into that and perform tasks.
How could you do that if you never learned these things? This is why people will have a little bit of a problem when you're going directly. But if you go from the route I just showed you, that shouldn't be a problem.
We basically say, based on how it works, "zero to two years." Nobody cares about zero to two if you know these skills. If you know how to tell people that you have done all this stuff, that you know how to perform work in Windows and Linux, then they will take you.
This is how it works. That's why it says "Junior," and that's why it says "entry-level" for most of IT. Even if they put experience, we ignore that. Ignoring is basically you telling the other person, "I'm very confident, and I have done a lot of hands-on projects. I know this stuff; give me a chance," and they will give it to you.
Now that you are clear, let's go ahead to our system or platform where you have access, and I'm going to show you how we are going to practically perform all these steps from step one to step two, learning the basics and getting into more specific learning like AWS.
So, let's get started with that. Let's say you're new and getting started. How will we do step one? Let's go back to the platform, and I'm going to open this platform.
Now, I assume you already have a premium membership with us; that's why you are going to get all this access to the labs. The first thing you need to do is click on the roadmaps. Roadmaps are collections of courses and labs that we have designed to make it easy for you.
If you're brand new or starting to learn the basics and fundamentals the right way, then you're going to go into this roadmap called the Modern IT Support Roadmap. You're going to click on "Start this roadmap," and then the roadmap will open up.
You see, it's like a map. You need to finish this whole map. Everything included in this map will lead you towards learning the IT fundamentals—everything that we expect you to know before you join and apply for more advanced positions.
This is going to enable you to start looking for IT support jobs. Let's say if you don't want to do these jobs or apply to jobs, at least you should finish it so you know all of these skills, like Active Directory, Office 365, and other technical skills.
Even inside these Modern IT Support courses, it's going to teach you about DNS, DHCP labs, and even cloud labs. It's going to teach you that stuff. Once you're ready to learn, just click on the course right here, and then it will open the course.
Click on "Start the course" by reading a description. Here on the left side, you can start with the introduction. It has a form you can fill out. We interact with you inside the courses as well, and there are lab tours, career information, learning goals, and what a network is.
You see, this is what I was talking about. You're going to learn all of these basics from this whole roadmap. It's four or five courses, and it's going to take you about two to three months, depending on how fast you do these labs.
It's going to work on your resume projects. Everything is in there for you to get those basics and prepare you for those entry-level IT jobs. Let's say you are not having good success with the cloud jobs. You may realize later on that you can actually go for these jobs and at least get started in IT.
The second roadmap, once you finish this roadmap, is the networking one. Again, we need this one because these are advanced positions. Even the cloud-level positions are advanced.
Like I said, in some companies, you're going to be working in a hybrid environment where they will have servers and networking devices that probably need to have some sort of connection with the cloud. That is where you can come back to the roadmap.
Let's go back to the roadmap. If I scroll down, we have this one: the Transitioning Skills Roadmap. This is basically a prerequisite before you start any advanced roadmaps in our system.
If you go to "Start," it's only one course, but it's like a program. The way it works is that we have a program where a teacher coaches people on our website. But let's say if you don't want to take the coaching program, a self-paced version is this one, where you can get into this as a member and start this course just like that.
Now you see it's all about networking: advanced networking, IP, DHCP labs, Ethernet switching, routing, wireless, and then there are some security hardening, VPN, load balancing, and cloud administration.
Again, over here, it goes into showing you some real-world demos and everything in here too. This will prepare you for junior systems administrator and network engineering positions. Even if they're using cloud, you still have some sort of experience from these two roadmaps.
You will be capable of landing some sort of IT jobs that have to do with cloud. It's a great way to gain confidence and get started.
Now, after this, we mentioned that you still need to know about the cloud basics, which is basically the third step. This is where you need to learn everything about the cloud. You just want to get into the cloud now, and that's where you need to go to our next roadmap.
Here, you will go back to the roadmap and scroll down. You see there's a Cloud Administrator Roadmap. This is where you can then start your cloud learning journey.
If you come over here, you see this is a cloud fundamental course. It targets two certifications. Even though we're not focused a lot on certification, the content we cover in this automatically covers these two, so you can kind of use it towards that as well.
Here, you see that we have cloud fundamentals. If you start with the cloud fundamentals, it's a very big course and a really hands-on course. If you go into it and start this course now, you will learn about what cloud is, the benefits, everything like video-based content, and understanding.
Then you're going to see the cloud concepts. Again, it's going to be videos, but there are chapters with some labs as well. For example, you cover consumption models and cloud services, and then you click on this practice lab. You can launch the lab right here, just like any other courses that I showed you.
All have labs, and the cloud has labs with us too. You open this, and you see this is a nice step-by-step objective. It tells you exactly what to do. When this opens up, you're going to log into the Azure environment and start learning that stuff.
When the computer opens up, it will automatically log you in, and then it will open the Azure portal. You can click on the browser, and this is where you can see that this Azure environment just opened up.
Of course, we have limitations here. It will not be like free access to do anything you want; it will be limited to your lab environment. If you want to do something more advanced or create very heavy virtual machines, you will have to get your own subscription and replicate things in your own environment.
But in your membership, limited access is available, and that's pretty good for you to just get the basics and even a little more than basics.
Here, chapter two will start, and you will learn about chapter two. In the middle, you see there are labs coming here. There's a lab about networking concepts. All of that stuff is available in this course.
Then it gets to more Cloud Plus, CompTIA Cloud Plus training. It starts with a lot of modules like this, basically hands-on videos. You're going to watch the videos performing here in the live environment.
If you watch, let's say, navigating the Microsoft Azure portal, then there's a live lab for that. Again, modules on availability, configuring, and managing cloud identities. Every time you click on it, it's going to take you to the lab.
It's a very long course, more than 20 hours worth of content. We're taking the basics very seriously. It's not like a two-hour course, and you're done with the basics. No, when you finish these basics, you're going to tell yourself, "Okay, I know the cloud basics."
Now, what is my next target after this? How can I achieve this goal where I want to be targeted towards some job where I can perform some tasks in a real AWS environment?
In this roadmap, you are going to continue your journey by following whatever the roadmap is teaching you. If I come to your roadmap right here, you see the second course in this is technical skills for IT professionals using Azure.
You could actually use this to learn more about the Azure environment. If you want to get into the cloud for AWS, which I would recommend, you can actually go over the videos in this one and then target AWS for now because that has more availability for these jobs.
You can open the AWS practitioner course, and that is also hands-on with limited access. Again, not everything is included, but that's enough for you to learn everything about AWS as well.
You could start the AWS practitioner course in our platform. You can go to the lecture, watch the lecture video, and then get into the fundamentals of Azure. The lab will teach you as well, and you can perform the lab in the real system by clicking here.
It's also going to open up a lab just like the Azure one. It's going to open an AWS lab. Now, the best thing about this is that when you start doing this stuff, when you start learning about this, you will have no issue understanding what's going on in these systems.
You can even get into these systems and play around with other things that are not covered in this course. As long as you have access, you can really mess around with it. That's where you gain confidence.
Why? Because you took the realistic approach towards becoming an advanced IT professional. Then you can say, "I can go for more than 100K, 120K," because you know a lot of stuff at this point.
If you open the browser here too, you see it's going to open an AWS environment. That's the reality of our platform. We only believe in real-world skills. The things we cover are going to be real projects, real systems, real machines.
When you finish everything by completing this whole roadmap, you can really go after these positions, even if you don't have a lot of experience. Getting that IT support job in the beginning does give you an upper hand for a lot of people.
But that doesn't mean that's the only way to do it. You can learn these skills and keep learning, then go after these jobs. However, you have to apply to hundreds of jobs to get some sort of response because this is how it works.
That's the reality. If you want to be doing this as a member, then go to jobskillshare.org, become a premium member. You can try the premium membership for just $1.99 for five days to see what I'm talking about, and then become a full-time one-year member because you want to use all of this.
It's not going to be something you can finish in one or two months; it's going to take you some time. Thank you! Hopefully, I have covered everything I wanted to about cloud administration. If not, let me know in the comment section.