SK
ENDaniel is our ambassador for Public Cloud Platforms. He has been with the company since 2006. From his position as ambassador and Cloud Architect, he told us about the public cloud, but also about what he likes about his work.
How would you describe a public cloud for a person who does not work in IT?
Cloud is a service in which the supplier provides the customer with servers, databases, networks, storage, or software without the end user taking care of the infrastructure. The public cloud is freely available, operated in the owner's data centers. The best known providers of public clouds are, for example, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud.
How has the cloud changed the IT sector?
To a great extent. In the past, many customers worked on their own data centers, which represented higher investment costs for them - they bought hardware for 5 years, which was less flexible and more difficult to optimize. The cloud is the exact opposite of past solutions. In terms of costs, it represents operating costs, eliminates the need to worry about hardware, and has a high degree of flexibility to increase or decrease performance if necessary or during planned changes.
At the same time, the cloud has also changed the focus of IT staff. In traditional IT, the man was a networker and focused only on networks. This is not the case with the cloud, as everything is slowly interconnected. A person who administers in the cloud must have knowledge of networks, operating systems, security. Thanks to this, he/she is not only boxed in one sphere, but he/she has a broader overview, and he/she can be of use, for example, in another area.
What do you see as the biggest benefit of cloud?
It certainly is the flexibility, innovation, and cost savings. Cloud solutions are flexible and less time-consuming. In the past, hardware, an operating system, a person to manage a database were needed, while in the cloud, everything can be done with simple clicks without worrying about hardware, which eliminates customer worries and the responsibility for the system lies with the provider.
What is your role as a Cloud Architect?
My job includes new orders from the initial pre-sales phase, introducing the solution to a specific customer. I also solve the design of the environment - from networks, operating system, virtual machines, databases to the final implementation. The result is a monitored and secure cloud, the systems of which are taken care of, optimized, and updated by colleagues. I provide technical details, I also take care of migration to the cloud, I am a consultant for the customer. From practice, I see how important communication with customers is. I usually come across the opinions of people who do not consider the cloud safe, do not know it and it is necessary to explain to customers the need and benefits of the cloud.
Does the cloud have its place in the future?
Certainly yes, whether we are talking about the public cloud in which I work or a private cloud. Even today, we see a trend of customers to use the services themselves as manageable databases rather than installing virtual machines. It is possible that in the future, the customer will order SAP directly in the cloud without the need to deal with the virtual machines on which the databases run, and we will rather do an explicit design of the environment.
What do you enjoy about your job?
I'm lucky that my work is also a hobby for me. I'm trying new things, I'm interested in news, I like to dedicate my time to it, so I don't have a problem with work-life balance. At work, I enjoy the fact that it is far from boring. Thanks to the fact that we focus on the cloud in Košice, we receive interesting projects that we are working on.
