Day 1: Cloud & DevOps Foundations

1. What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing provides computing resources such as servers, storage, databases and networking over the internet. It helps users access resources without buying and maintaining all the physical hardware themselves.

• Scalability: Increase or decrease resources when required.
• Pay-as-you-go: Many services charge according to usage.
• Examples: AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Microsoft Azure.

2. What is AWS?

Amazon Web Services is a cloud platform offering services for compute, storage, networking, databases, security and monitoring.

• EC2: Virtual servers.
• S3: Object storage.
• IAM: Identity and access management.
• VPC: Isolated virtual networking.

3. What are AI, Linux and DevOps?

• AI: Techniques that allow computers to perform tasks such as recognising patterns, understanding language and generating content.
• Linux: An operating system widely used on servers and in cloud environments.
• DevOps: Practices that improve collaboration and automate software build, test, release and operation workflows.

4. Introduction to Google Cloud Platform

GCP provides cloud services such as Compute Engine virtual machines, Cloud Storage, IAM and networking.

1. Open the Google Cloud Console.
2. Select or create the appropriate project.
3. Review billing and free-tier eligibility before enabling paid services.
4. Use the VM/Compute Engine section to inspect your virtual machine.
5. Connect using the approved SSH option.

Always check billing, firewall rules and access permissions before creating resources.

5. Basic Linux terminal orientation

whoami
pwd
ls
uname -a
cat /etc/os-release

These commands show the current user, current directory, directory contents, kernel information and operating-system details.

Revision Questions

1. What is cloud computing?
2. Name three cloud providers.
3. What is Linux used for?
4. What does DevOps help teams achieve?
5. Why should cloud billing be checked?