Network Programmability and Automation, 2nd Edition

Chapter 4. Cloud

Few technology trends have had the impact that cloud computing has had on the IT industry—save perhaps virtualization, which is a foundational technology for cloud computing. As a network engineer, you may be asking yourself, “What does cloud computing have to do with me?” Some network engineers may dismiss cloud computing, feeling like their skills aren’t needed for cloud-based environments. Others, including the authors, feel quite differently.

Networking is every bit as important “in the cloud” as it is for an on-premises environment. In fact, some might say that networking is even more important in the cloud. Additionally, to truly reap the benefits of cloud computing—easy scale-in/scale-out, on-demand resources, and ephemeral environments, among others—you really need to embrace automation. It’s only natural, then, that a book on network automation and programmability discusses the role of cloud computing in the context of network automation.

Entire tomes have been written and will probably continue to be written about the various cloud providers, the services these cloud providers offer, how to architect solutions for the cloud providers, and more. With that in mind, this chapter aims to be a bit more compact and provide only the key essentials you need as a network engineer to add cloud computing to your arsenal of tools for solving the problems you encounter on a daily basis.

The best place to start is by establishing a baseline definition of cloud computing. ...