Cloud Beginners: Why Cloud Academy Will Be Your Best Friend

We are living in a world where the internet is pretty much the norm. It’s the digital age where information is passed around without borders anytime, anywhere.

On a related note, we’re sure that many of you have heard of all these talks about cloud computing.

To put it simply, cloud computing is computing that’s based on the internet. With that said, “cloud computing” has recently become the most talked topic among IT professionals and businesses.

If you consider yourself to be a cloud beginner, we’d like to introduce you to a learning platform that will help you learn and test your cloud computing skills – Cloud Academy.

So is this a good place to learn about Cloud Computing? Let’s find out!

Why Cloud Computing?

Before we talk about the Cloud Academy service itself, it’s important to know why it’s beneficial for you to learn cloud computing in the first place.

1. Flexibility

If your business has a growing or fluctuating bandwidth demands, it can really benefit from the flexibility of cloud-based services.

When the demand for your business increases, scaling up your cloud capacity is very easy. The same applies if you need to scale down, it’s as easy as drawing from the remote servers. This level of flexibility can really give a business a much-needed edge over its competitors.

2. Cost-Efficiency

By adopting cloud computing in your business, operation expenses can be completely cut down or kept to a minimum since it bypasses the need for an on-site data center. This includes not having to spend on assets like physical servers, hardware, software, and many others.

On top of that, there’s also the savings for the electricity used for power and cooling solutions for the servers. So in a way, cloud computing is friendly to the environment as well. Plus, you no longer have to pay wages for IT professionals to monitor and maintain the servers.

With the money that you can save from physical data centers and their maintenance, you can allocate the funds for the more important aspects of the business.

3. Always-On Availability

So, what if the cloud service crashes?

Well, most cloud providers are very reliable when it comes to their services. Many of these cloud companies guarantee 99.99% uptime. So, the connection to the cloud will always be online, provided that the business and the workers have access to the internet.

Plus, there are many applications that can work offline.

4. Collaboration Efficiency

With the power of the cloud, a business will have the ability to easily communicate and share resources outside of the conventional methods.

If you are working on an assignment or project across different locations, you can use a cloud service to provide employees, contractors, and third-parties the required access to the same files. This way, collaborating with the rest of the team becomes a more efficient and seamless experience.

5. Data Security

When talking about the cons of cloud-based services, one of the major concerns is about data security.

That’s a fair concern but most service providers nowadays ensure that their cloud servers are secured through stringent audit and compliance. For good measure, most service providers will work with a third-party to monitor all activities in the cloud and ensure that all security standards are met.

What Is Cloud Academy?

So what exactly is Cloud Academy?

According to the company About page:

Cloud Academy is a provider-neutral learning platform that helps both companies and individuals learn Cloud Computing technologies.

Basically, this platform aims to help both enterprises and individuals with learning everything about cloud computing. The academy is a diverse, curated, centralized database and learning platform that helps cloud beginners get off the ground, so to speak. Plus, the company claims that the content available in the company can’t be found elsewhere.

The academy offers complete learning solutions to popular cloud computing environments such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Azure, and many others.

Cloud Academy Highlights

For this section, we’ll tackle the most noteworthy products and services of the academy.

Training Plans

If you are a business who’s looking to train your team in cloud computing, the academy offers a wide range of training plans to accommodate your needs.

The training plans are basically centralized control for businesses that are looking for a straightforward approach to building and maintaining a competitive edge. With these plans, you can easily assign a set of curated learning paths and exams to members of the team. This is imperative for initiatives like DevOps culture, customized certification programs, and even for new hire onboarding.

Unlike an in-person training or e-learning, the plans allow a data-driven approach to ongoing cloud skills development.

Skill Assessment

The academy offers a platform to help put a team’s real-world cloud skills to the test. The company boasts the largest and most relevant collection of cloud assessment content available. So, your organization can create exams that are specific to the company’s technology stack, you can even create your own questions.

The academy also features a library of pre-built exams that are closely aligned with certification tests like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.

Learning Paths

One of the best things that we like about Cloud Academy is the Learning Paths.

Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, the academy’s learning technology can help identify the skill gaps within the team. With the learning paths, students will learn the theory and practice needed to manage and operate multiple cloud platforms.

Learning paths allow the students to consume training materials at their own pace.

The academy also provides a great avenue to learn cloud concepts with industry experts through their courses. These video courses can be modified to suit the students’ needs like adjusting the video speed and using subtitles. All video courses can be accessed through the web or mobile.

The courses themselves are quite extensive. For example, under the Amazon Web Services paths, you can access courses like Security - Specialty Certification Preparation for AWS to Scenario: Migrating From an End-of-Life Data Center to AWS.

Hands-on Labs

Real world experience is always important in any IT solutions, and that includes cloud computing.

The academy offers Hands-on Labs which is described as the “flight simulator for training in the cloud.” These are live cloud environments that will allow teams to gain real-world experiences on platforms like AWS and Azure.

The best part is that the labs come at no additional costs.

The academy features over 70 hands-on labs and counting. These labs are guided step by step to ensure comprehensive learning. Students will be put in a real-world but secure learning sandbox that will enable them to build practical, lasting cloud computing skills.

Even if you don’t have an AWS or Azure account, the hands-on labs are instantly provisioned and managed by the academy. You will be given accounts which are active in seconds and will be terminated once the lab is completed.

Content Engine™

If your organization is looking to create a customized learning path, the academy will have no problem accommodating you with their Content Engine™ product.

The Content Engine™ allows an organization to create custom learning paths and exams that are specific to the needs of the team. You can create your own or borrow from the extensive library of Quizzes, video courses, Hands-on Labs, and exams.

In addition, creating your own set of hands-on labs is about as painless as you can get. By the end, you will have a set of live training environments that are similar to your company’s infrastructure. These environments will be secured and 100% managed by the academy.

Content Library

The Cloud Academy boasts a content library that is found nowhere else on the web, and we tend to agree.

At a glance, you should see that the academy features a wide range of training materials from cloud services like AWS and Azure to Cloud Computing Certification Training Library.

The library is divided into learning paths, courses and exams to ensure a no-nonsense learning experience. If you want to access the content library with no commitment, you can sign-up for a 7-day trial.

Pricing

For individuals, this package includes Hands-on Labs, earning Paths, Skill Assessment, Video Courses, Study-Mode Quizzes, Mobile App (with Offline Mode), Test-Mode Quizzes, Certification Practice Exams. There’s also a free 7-day trial if you’re interested in trying it out.

For businesses and organizations, you can purchase a set number of licenses. You’ll get everything that comes with the Personal plan plus Training Plan, Enterprise Scenarios, Content Engine™, Centralized Account Management, Branded Employee Portal, and more.

Do We Recommend Cloud Academy?

There are many cloud learning platforms on the market but we have to say that Cloud Academy is up there with the best of them.

The reality is that cloud computing is becoming more complex by the day. Fortunately, the academy provides comprehensive and updated materials for anyone who’s looking to learn more about the cloud.