Cloud Computing Fundamentals

Learning Path

📘 Phase 1 – Overview

🎯 Lesson Objective

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Understand what cloud computing is.
Explain why organisations adopt cloud technologies.
Compare traditional data centres with cloud environments.
Understand cloud service models and deployment models.
Identify the building blocks of modern cloud infrastructure.
Understand how Cloud Security Engineers fit into cloud environments.

📚 Lesson Information

Estimated Time: 90 Minutes

Difficulty: Beginner

Prerequisites: Security Mindset

Hands-on Lab: Yes

Assignment: Yes

💼 Business Value

Modern organisations rely on cloud computing to deliver applications faster, reduce infrastructure costs, improve scalability, and increase business agility.

A Cloud Security Engineer must understand how cloud environments are designed before learning how to secure them.

Security begins with understanding the architecture.

🌍 What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of computing services over the internet.

Instead of purchasing and maintaining physical infrastructure, organisations rent computing resources from cloud providers.

These resources include:

Compute
Storage
Networking
Databases
Security Services
Artificial Intelligence
Analytics
Monitoring

Cloud providers manage the underlying infrastructure, allowing organisations to focus on building and securing applications.

🏢 Traditional Data Centre vs Cloud

Traditional Data Centre	Cloud Computing
Purchase physical servers	Rent resources on demand
High upfront investment	Pay only for what you use
Manual hardware upgrades	Automatic scalability
Weeks or months to provision	Minutes to provision
Limited scalability	Virtually unlimited scalability
Hardware maintenance required	Managed by cloud provider

🚀 Why Organisations Move to the Cloud

Companies adopt cloud computing because it enables them to:

Launch products faster.
Scale globally.
Improve business continuity.
Reduce infrastructure management.
Increase operational efficiency.
Improve security capabilities.
Support remote teams.
Accelerate innovation.

Cloud adoption is a business decision supported by technology.

☁️ Characteristics of Cloud Computing

Modern cloud platforms provide:

On-Demand Self-Service

Resources can be provisioned without contacting the provider.

Broad Network Access

Services are available over the internet from authorised devices.

Resource Pooling

Infrastructure is shared securely among customers.

Rapid Elasticity

Resources automatically scale based on demand.

Measured Service

Customers pay only for the resources they consume.

🏗️ Cloud Service Models

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

The provider manages:

Data Centre
Physical Servers
Storage
Networking
Virtualisation

Customers manage:

Operating System
Applications
Security Configuration
Data

Examples:

Amazon EC2
Amazon EBS
Amazon VPC

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

The provider manages:

Infrastructure
Operating System
Runtime
Middleware

Customers manage:

Applications
Data

Examples:

AWS Elastic Beanstalk
AWS Lambda

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Everything is managed by the provider.

Customers simply use the application.

Examples:

Microsoft 365
Google Workspace
Salesforce

🌎 Cloud Deployment Models

Public Cloud

Infrastructure shared securely among customers.

Examples:

AWS
Microsoft Azure
Google Cloud

Private Cloud

Dedicated infrastructure for one organisation.

Used by:

Government
Banking
Healthcare

Hybrid Cloud

Combination of on-premises infrastructure and cloud services.

Multi-Cloud

Using multiple cloud providers.

Example:

AWS + Azure + Google Cloud

🏢 Enterprise Cloud Architecture

Most organisations don’t use a single server.

A typical enterprise environment includes:

Internet
      │
      ▼
DNS
      │
      ▼
Load Balancer
      │
      ▼
Web Servers
      │
      ▼
Application Servers
      │
      ▼
Databases
      │
      ▼
Storage
      │
      ▼
Backup
      │
      ▼
Monitoring

Every layer requires security controls.

🌍 AWS Global Infrastructure

AWS operates cloud infrastructure worldwide.

Key components include:

Regions
Availability Zones
Edge Locations
Local Zones
Wavelength Zones

These components provide:

High Availability
Fault Tolerance
Low Latency
Disaster Recovery

👨‍💻 Role of a Cloud Security Engineer

A Cloud Security Engineer helps organisations:

Secure cloud infrastructure.
Protect customer data.
Design secure architectures.
Review IAM permissions.
Monitor cloud activity.
Investigate incidents.
Implement security controls.
Support compliance.

Cloud Security Engineers work closely with:

Cloud Engineers
DevOps Engineers
Developers
SOC Analysts
Compliance Teams

🧪 Hands-on Exercise 1 — Explore AWS Global Infrastructure

Visit:

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/

Identify:

Number of AWS Regions
Number of Availability Zones
AWS Region closest to your location

Questions:

Why do organisations deploy applications across multiple Regions?
What happens if one Availability Zone fails?

🧪 Hands-on Exercise 2 — Measure Network Connectivity

Open a terminal.

Windows

ping amazon.com

Linux/macOS

ping amazon.com

Observe:

Latency
Packet loss
Response times

Questions:

Why is latency important?
How does cloud infrastructure improve performance?

🧪 Hands-on Exercise 3 — Trace Network Path

Windows

tracert amazon.com

Linux/macOS

traceroute amazon.com

Observe:

Number of hops
Intermediate routers
Network path

Questions:

Why doesn’t internet traffic travel directly?
How could attackers gather information from network paths?

🧪 Hands-on Exercise 4 — Explore AWS Pricing

Visit:

https://calculator.aws/

Estimate the monthly cost of:

One EC2 instance
100 GB S3 storage
One Application Load Balancer

Questions:

Why is cloud pricing considered operational expenditure (OpEx)?
How does pay-as-you-go benefit startups?

🧪 Hands-on Exercise 5 — Create Your AWS Account

If you haven’t already:

Create an AWS Free Tier account.
Enable Multi-Factor Authentication.
Configure Billing Alerts.
Install AWS CLI.
Verify your account.

🏢 Enterprise Scenario

CloudNova Technologies is expanding into Singapore.

Management asks:

Should we build another data centre?
Should we use AWS?
Which AWS Region should we choose?
How can we improve availability?
What security considerations exist?

Prepare recommendations as the Cloud Security Engineer.

📝 Assignment

Prepare a one-page report answering:

Why are organisations moving to cloud?
Compare traditional infrastructure and cloud computing.
Explain IaaS, PaaS and SaaS with examples.
Explain Public, Private, Hybrid and Multi-Cloud.
Why are Regions and Availability Zones important?

💡 Key Takeaways

After completing this lesson, you should understand:

Why cloud computing exists.
Why organisations adopt cloud platforms.
Cloud service models.
Cloud deployment models.
Enterprise cloud architecture.
AWS global infrastructure.
The role of a Cloud Security Engineer in modern organisations.

📚 Further Reading

AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials
AWS Global Infrastructure
AWS Well-Architected Framework
NIST Definition of Cloud Computing (SP 800-145)

🚀 Next Lesson

➡️ Shared Responsibility Model