LITS Archive of Online News

[Ed. note: This article is the first part of a three-part series this week from the LITS Cloud Advisory Group (CAG). The introductory article about the CIMP project can be found here.]

For the past several weeks, the project team has been working hard on a pilot program to gain migration and Amazon Web Service (AWS) experience. This effort involved preparing an AWS “landing zone,” migrating applications (in an isolated environment) and then testing AWS performance. As a reminder, the following applications are included in our pilot:

• Peoplesoft ELM
• OnBase
• Shibboleth
• Confluence (Wiki)
• Web Hosting (emory.edu)
• Clinical Trials

We are happy to report that the results of our pilot migrations have been very promising. There have certainly been challenges, but through it all we have learned a great deal about the process and about AWS.

Caleb Boyd

Caleb Boyd, who was responsible for migrating Confluence, described the challenge of building out the network architecture: “Since the environment was fairly bare-bones to start, configuring firewalls and security groups, building out AWS load balancers, and configuring SSL certs all had to be completed from the ground up. Since this was one of the first applications we migrated, we were blazing some new trails, but the lessons we learned were very valuable in our successive attempts.”

Eddie Feliciano, responsible for OnBase, raves about the positive outcomes of the pilot migration experience, “Being brand new to this technology, everything we experience with our ‘hands-on’ migrations allows us to learn about the technical details of deploying/administering cloud solutions. Learning to think of your application’s infrastructure as code really brings out new ideas for how we could use non-prod environments to support and respond to customer issues/requests.”

As for the performance results, initially there were a couple situations where we had some concerns. But as we learned how to appropriately optimize the AWS environments, we were able to work through any performance issues and demonstrate response times similar to, or exceeding, the on-premise deployments. Caleb’s report of Confluence performance nicely sums up the results that we have seen across the board, “Our initial tests indicate that the application should perform just as well, if not better, in AWS. And even if we find that the results are lacking, the move to AWS should let us scale up extra resources quickly to compensate.”

[Ed. note: Cloud Advisory Group (CAG) update #2.]

As cloud services become more prevalent at Emory, many LITS employees may be thinking about how to prepare themselves for this critical shift. AWS has many resources that address various cloud topics and their associated certification exams allow for foundational to professional level.

There are even specialty courses for people to hone in on a certain area of cloud computing.

The CAG recommends that almost anyone with an IT job function at Emory should attain the AWS Cloud Practitioner credential.

The AWS Cloud Practitioner provides an overall knowledge of the AWS cloud, its functionality, and product offerings. It is a great springboard to the multitude of training opportunities AWS has available for anyone interested in enhancing their IT career.

For more information about this training, go to: https://wiki.service.emory.edu/display/EAWS/EPIC%3A+Organizational+Training.

Derek Cox.

Derek Cox, a LITS systems engineer who has attained AWS certifications of Practitioner, Solutions Architect (SA) Associate, SA Professional, and SysOps Associate, says about AWS training, “I believe that if Emory wants to adopt a Cloud First strategy, everyone in the organization should be familiar with the terms for AWS and Cloud Computing. This is very similar to the mindset we took when everyone got ITIL Foundations Certified. The Cloud Practitioner exam is targeted towards non-technical staff that need to know the concepts of AWS but not the deep dive technical details.”

When asked to describe how he has applied this training in his career, Derek says, “If people don’t take the time now to learn the new technologies, they will be woefully left behind working on obsolete technology. Thus, my passion to re-tool my career to this new paradigm shift and assist others into adopting new skills for the future of IT.”

Zach Cox.

Zach Cox (no relation), a LITS security analyst with the AWS certification of SA Associate with a security specialty, added, “Individuals that complete the AWS Cloud Practitioner certification will have the skills to understand major topics that are discussed and the ability to expand that knowledge by studying and attempting additional AWS certifications in the future. For the last year, since starting with Emory, I was tasked to help secure the AWS at Emory project. By taking my Certified Security – Specialist certification, I was able to confirm my understanding and improve the security posture for all AWS projects I am a part of here at Emory.”