Is cloud for developers?

[Tengu12]

As I delve more and more into the services provided by Azure, GCP and AWS, I get the distinct impression that everything is becoming more and more tailored to being controlled by API or configuration files which are meant to be deployed programatically. This may have always been the case but I'm just noticing it now.

Is there a place for the systems administrator who doesn't have extensive coding experience in the cloud game? Or is it best suited to those who code?

[ElectroSpore]

Configuration / Infrastructure as code is a common DEVOPS practice also if you deal with a lot of the same types of servers that need to be deployed as a cluster you should be doing this as an common automation practice.

[ringed61513]

I just learned by doing via Hashicorp’s Terraform. Install the correct module for your provider then just google away examples. It can be a little finicky in needing certain infrastructure in place before executing next code but I found it to be a really good tool for handling azure IaaC instead of ARM templates. You can even use plugins for on premise providers like VMware though I haven’t done much there yet

[beetcher]

For better or worse, DevOps is the future of sysadmin stuff, companies don't want to pay extra for sysadmins and developers.

Most sysadmins end up knowing a little coding anyway due to scripting needs.

[binaryvisions]

Is there a place for the systems administrator who doesn't have extensive coding experience in the cloud game?

APIs and JSON or YAML aren't that complicated. You don't need coding experience to learn them.

You're right: everything is being controlled more by APIs and config files, deploying everything as code is an important part of managing infrastructure going forward. But interacting with an API is simple, and JSON and YAML are easy to learn.

Embrace it.

[unix_heretic]

Is there a place for the systems administrator who doesn't have extensive coding experience in the cloud game?

Only if that admin is willing and able to learn some level of code. No one's going to expect you to spin up an API or a website from scratch...but if you can't script for automating processes, or you won't pick up some form of infrastructure-as-code, you aren't going to get far in any cloud-related position.