Cloud Engineering Essentials

Cloud computing is no longer optional.

Organizations of every size now rely on cloud platforms to build applications, store data, secure infrastructure, deploy services globally, and scale technology faster than ever before. Yet many professionals use cloud services every day without fully understanding how they work.

The truth is simple:

You don't need to be a cloud architect to understand cloud computing.

You need to understand the fundamentals, the technologies powering modern cloud platforms, and the principles organizations use to design, secure, and scale cloud infrastructure successfully.

In Cloud Engineering Essentials, Ethan Vale provides a practical and comprehensive introduction to modern cloud computing, helping readers develop the knowledge needed to understand, design, and work with cloud infrastructure confidently.

This book explains cloud concepts from first principles and covers the technologies that power today's digital world, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Rather than focusing solely on certification preparation, it teaches the underlying architecture, design patterns, security principles, networking concepts, and operational practices used by real-world cloud engineers.

Inside this book, you'll learn:

• What cloud computing actually is and how it differs from traditional infrastructure
• IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud models
• Cloud regions, availability zones, global infrastructure, and resilience design
• Virtual machines, containers, serverless computing, and managed services
• Object storage, block storage, file storage, and cloud databases
• Networking fundamentals including VPCs, load balancers, DNS, and content delivery networks
• Identity and Access Management (IAM), encryption, compliance, and cloud security best practices
• Cloud-native architecture, Kubernetes, and modern application deployment strategies
• Cost optimization techniques and cloud financial management principles
• The future of cloud computing, AI infrastructure, edge computing, and emerging technologies