Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
The September 4th AWS NET+ Tech Share covered a wide range of topics including the Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA), campus-wide help desk unification, cloud engineering recruitment, and the state of DevOps education in universities. Here are the key points from the discussion:
Recent and Upcoming Events
- NET+ AWS Strat Call - Unlocking AWS Private Marketplace (recording | blog)
- REMINDER: Office Hours 9/11 11am PT/2pm ET https://internet2.zoom.us/j/81114348919
- NET+ AWS Tech Jam - Building Your AWS Private Marketplace: Hands-On Lab 9/18 11am PT/2pm ET (Registration required)
- Technology Exchange registration rates increase by $200 on Friday, September 6th. If you are reading this after the price change, it’s still worth attending!
- Call for proposals for Community Exchange closes on September 13th. If you have been or are working on an interesting project or encountering unique challenges that you think others should hear about, consider submitting a proposal!
- AWS Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA)Community of Practice continues to meet monthly. Sign up and join in.
LZA Community of Practice: Purpose and Potential Spin Off
The discussion on LZA began with a question from Loyola Marymount University (LMU) about where institutions can discuss maintaining customized landing zone deployments, and whether the LZA Community of Practice was the right place for such discussions.
In response, AWS clarified the dual purpose of the LZA Community of Practice:
- To gather feedback from institutions currently using LZA
- To provide a platform for those seeking to learn more about LZA
An important point raised was the need for a dedicated space where institutions can discuss maintaining customized lower-case lz/landing zone deployments. This is different than LZA. See the blog I wrote for September’s AWS LZA Community of Practice meeting for more explanation.
To address these growing needs, a suggestion was made to dedicate a quarterly call to Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) and/or custom landing zone deployment. It's worth noting that this was just an initial idea proposed during the discussion, and the most suitable platform for such conversations is yet to be determined.
Help Desk Unification: Seeking Success Stories
Jan from AWS raised an interesting question about unifying multiple independent help desks across a campus with a central service desk. If any institutions have experience with such a project, AWS is keen to facilitate connections and share learnings. Contact Jan at janday@amazon.com
Hands-on "Barn-raising" Topics
The community expressed interest in hands-on sessions to collectively build out modular projects together. A couple of suggestions to start with are:
These practical sessions would guide institutions through the steps of deployng them in their own environments. If you have ideas for similar done-in-a-day-or-less projects with broad appeal, contact Bob Flynn bflynn@internet2.edu.
Cloud Engineering Recruitment and Cloud Computing Courses
The University of Wisconsin-Madison shared their experience in hiring for a new Cloud Engineer position. The role requires multi-cloud experience (AWS, Azure, GCP) and proficiency in Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
They are seeing lots of resumes for the position. More than a few cover letters and even some resumes look AI generated. The discussion turned from the challenge many organizations are facing finding experienced candidates to cloud computing and DevOps courses offered at universities and technical institutes. Kelly Rivera shared her insights into the training offered at a local Wisconsin technical college:
- They offer courses on Terraform, cloud platforms, and CI/CD pipelines.
- While the program provides a solid foundation, graduates lacked the stresses of managing production environments and the benefits of working in a team. AWS GameDays were suggested as a way to help bridge those gaps. .
- The University of Wisconsin-Madison has considered sourcing interns from this program.
Another institution mentioned that they offer a few Master's level courses in the Business School using cloud services for data analytics and machine learning. These courses use AWS Cloud Academy, but most computer science and MIS coursework remains theoretical rather than applied. This discussion highlights the growing need for practical, hands-on cloud and DevOps education in academic settings to prepare students for the evolving job market.
The AWS NET+ Tech Share continues to be a valuable venue for knowledge sharing, community building, and addressing the evolving needs of research and education institutions in their cloud journey.
Be sure to check out the other blog posts we've written. As always, feel free to send any feedback to tmanik[at]internet2[dot]edu.