Cloud

Cloud Skill

Configure and manage cloud infrastructure and services.

When to Use

Use this skill when the user wants to:

• Provision cloud resources (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• Configure cloud services (compute, storage, databases)
• Set up cloud infrastructure as code
• Manage deployment pipelines
• Work with serverless functions
• Configure networking and security
• Optimize cloud costs

Cloud Providers & Services

AWS (Amazon Web Services)

• Compute: EC2 (VMs), Lambda (Serverless), ECS/EKS (Containers).
• Storage: S3 (Object), EBS (Block), EFS (File).
• Database: RDS (Relational), DynamoDB (NoSQL), ElastiCache (In-memory).
• Networking: VPC, Route 53 (DNS), CloudFront (CDN), ELB (Load Balancer).

GCP (Google Cloud Platform)

• Compute: Compute Engine, Cloud Run (Serverless Containers), App Engine.
• Storage: Cloud Storage, Persistent Disk.
• Database: Cloud SQL, BigQuery (Data Warehouse), Firestore (NoSQL).
• Networking: VPC, Cloud DNS, Cloud Load Balancing.

Azure (Microsoft Azure)

• Compute: Virtual Machines, Azure Functions, App Service.
• Storage: Blob Storage, Azure Files, Disk Storage.
• Database: Azure SQL, Cosmos DB, Azure Cache for Redis.
• Networking: VNet, Azure DNS, Application Gateway.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

• Terraform: Multi-cloud, declarative configuration.
• CloudFormation: AWS-native infrastructure provisioning.
• Pulumi: Using general-purpose programming languages for IaC.
• ARM Templates / Bicep: Azure-native infrastructure provisioning.

Common Tasks

Compute & Scaling

• Provisioning virtual machines and auto-scaling groups.
• Setting up serverless functions (Lambda, Cloud Functions).
• Managing container orchestration (EKS, GKE, AKS).

Networking & Security

• Configuring VPCs, subnets, and routing tables.
• Setting up firewalls and security groups.
• Implementing Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles and policies.

Storage & Data

• Configuring object storage buckets and lifecycle policies.
• Setting up managed database instances.
• Implementing Content Delivery Networks (CDNs).

Common Pitfalls

• Unmanaged Costs: Forgetting to turn off unused resources (e.g., idle NAT gateways, large DB instances).
• Manual Configuration ("Snowflake" Infrastructure): Making manual changes in the cloud console instead of using IaC, leading to drift.
• Over-permissioned IAM Roles: Granting AdministratorAccess when only specific permissions are needed.
• Insecure Networking: Leaving SSH (22) or RDP (3389) open to the entire internet.
• Lack of Tagging: Not using tags, making it impossible to track costs and ownership.

Deliverables

• Cloud infrastructure configuration (Terraform, CloudFormation, etc.).
• Deployment scripts and automation.
• Cost estimation and optimization reports.
• Infrastructure architecture diagrams.
• Security and compliance checklists.

Quality Checklist

• Resources are properly tagged for cost tracking and ownership.
• Security groups/firewalls follow the principle of least privilege.
• Monitoring (CloudWatch, Stackdriver) and logging are enabled.
• Cost optimization measures are applied (e.s. Reserved Instances, Spot Instances).
• Infrastructure is reproducible through IaC.
• Follows cloud provider best practices (Well-Architected Framework).