How will my career evolve with the cloud?

This post is a response to the following article about how careers are evolving as cloud use increases.
https://blogs.technet.com/b/simonmay/archive/2011/03/24/how-will-my-career-evolve-with-the-cloud.aspx

**#1 skill to know moving into the future with technology is business knowledge**

Technical skills to be sure to know:

1. Understand the technologies that power cloud
1. Virtualization
2. Cost Structure behind storage and processing in the cloud
2. Connection technologies for traditional models to the cloud
3. Know what your business needs to measure and monitor it
1. Make sure the business has full availability to its data when it needs it, and scaled down or depleted availability when it doesn't in order to reduce cost
4. Understand how to govern the cloud
1. Understand what data to keep in the cloud, and what to keep on premises (operational vs. strategic etc.)
2. Understand what allowances the cloud provider offers

Things not mentioned in the article that are important to keep tabs on:

1. Keep vanilla copies of data in the cloud so they can be easily transferred to other providers if need be. 
2. Keep backups of your stored data so you have access to it should the provider go out of business or shut down temporarily.
3. Write detailed contracts that include stipulations on every aspect that your company needs from the provider.

Using Amazon RDS

1) Sign up for Amazon RDS, Create RDS Instance, Create DBSecurityGroup that allows elastic beanstalk to connect : http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AmazonRDS/latest/GettingStartedGuide/

2) Add current IP to Security Group that will allow local computer to connect with MySQL Workbench
3) Download MySQL Workbench : http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/workbench/

4) Connect RDS database with MySQL Workbench

1. Copy Endpoint from desired RDS database located in the AWS console (RDS window)
2. Start MySQL Workbench
3. Click "Open Connection to Start Querying"
4. Paste Endpoint into text box labeled "Hostname:"
5. Type  masterUserName into text box labeled "Username:"
6. Click "Store in Vault" button and enter masterUserPassword
7. Click "OK" button at bottom of window

5) Modify RDS database

Lots of Love for Cloud Computing

The ZDNet article Can you land a cloud computing job? states:

"Cloud computing is the future of IT delivery. Cloud-computing skills are in demand. Cloud-computing jobs are where you should direct you career."

Could be a lot of hype, but everywhere you look these days you'll find articles like this. The article points out that there are both managerial and operational cloud skills in demand.

Building Java Web Apps in AWS using Eclipse

Below is the best link I found for creating a basic Java web project that deploys over AWS.
http://blog.teamextension.com/getting-started-with-aws-elastic-beanstalk-179

Summary:

You must have a valid AWS account, have signed up for Elastic Beanstalk, and have the Eclipse AWS plugin installed. Once all of that is done, Open up Eclipse and create a new aws java web project. Do the rest of the programming the same way you would a normal java web project. When the programming is finished, right click the project name, and go to run as.. and click run on server. When this window pops up, designate a new AWS tomcat server to run on. Once completed, Eclipse will upload the project onto AWS and will be accessible through the AWS console.

An important thing to remember is that when you run your project on the server, AWS creates a S3 bucket for the server to draw files from, and creates and starts an instance for the web server to run on. This instance will stay running and continue to charge your account if you don't turn it off when you are finished.