Sample Cloud Tester Profile

	Cloud Tester
Role Definition	Technical member of Cloud testing team
Pre-Requisites	Past experience of performing functional testing of applications with one or more specialized areas such as performance, load/ stress and security etc. Experience testing RESTful and SOAP based web services Solid understanding of HTTP/S; Knowledge of JSON, XML and queue based messaging No prior understanding of Cloud is required
Mandatory Skills	Basic understanding of Cloud deployment models Basic Understanding of Cloud provided infrastructure and services Basic understanding of security related aspects, impact of Cloud on security and ability to create secure test data for Cloud based testing Ability to provision hardware/ software and setup test environment in the Cloud Working knowledge of relational databases and applicable Operating System (OS) Ability to understand metrics such as page load times, network latency, response times etc., correlate it with requirements and report bugs wherever there are gaps Ability to inject (large scale) data and traffic from multiple locations spread across the world (whenever required)
Optional Skills	Basic understanding of Cloud Provider's costing model Basic understanding of NoSQL databases Knowledge of multi-tenancy architectures Knowledge of testing for mobile enviornments and devices Azure: - Visual Studio based load test service
Certification (Optional)	None
Supervision	Close supervision required
Line reporting	Reports to Test Manager
Interactions	With Whom: Testing and development teams; No customer interaction

AWS issues

- Low quality support on forums. Folks on support do not show the kind of expertise expected

- Increasing complexity will add to need to get more front line architects at greater expense

- Where do developers test without incurring significant expenses? More importantly organizations won't like unpredictability in their cost. Even free tier limits may be breached. Where are simulators? That's a big plus for Azure. May be Amazon should offer sandbox environment to large enterprises on per user basis. CloudFormation doesn't have a sandbox or simulator. What a pity!

- Some of services are launched without free tier offering. What do we do with that?

- Edicational institutions are not churning cloud developers. Amazon needs to find a way to promote cloud as a subject and get ready programmers.

.NET AWS Cloud Development Profiles

	.NET
	Cloud Developer	Senior Cloud Developer	Technical Lead - Cloud
Role Definition	Technical member of Azure development team, writes code, unit test and perform bug fixes on Azure platform	Technical member of Azure development team, contributes towards high level design of relatively less complex modules using Object oriented and Cloud design patterns; Writes code and performs unit testing and reviews work of Cloud Developers	Technical leader of a team responsible for a Azure based sub-system/ module. Interacts with customer during design phases (after architecture phase) and beyond.
Pre-Requsities	Good understanding of .NET platform Knowledge of EntityFramework and Enterprise library No prior understanding of Cloud is required	Good understanding of .NET platform Ability to design relatively less complex modules No prior understanding of Cloud is required	Excellent understanding of .NET platform; Minimum 6 years of experience on .NET Ability to independently design complex sub-systems/ modules No prior understanding of Cloud is required
Mandatory Skills	Good understanding of Cloud environment and deployment models Basic understanding of key Azure services * Ability to program using Azure SDK for .NET Knowledge of Management Portal; Windows OS and System Manager Knowledge of Cross-Platform Command-Line Interface (xplat-cli) and Azure Emulators Ability to program using OData services Understanding of RESTful and SOAP based Web Services	In addition to Cloud Developer skills, following additional skills are required: Deep understanding of key Azure services including aspects such as security, performance, availability etc. Understanding of Azure design patterns and ability to apply those to the design Understanding of monitoring capabilities available on Azure, ability to derive actions from the reports and implement them Ability to design and program using Enterprise Library Transient Fault Handling Block	In addition to Senior Cloud Developer skills, following additional skills are required: Ability to understand architecture documents defined by Architect(s) and follow during implementation Ability to design complex sub-systems and technically supervise and own implementation, testing and deployment Deep understanding of Azure security best practices and ability to design secure sub-systems ** Deep understanding of Cloud deployment models Deep understanding of applicable OS Ability to drive successful implementation of Continuous Integration; Derive/Take actions based on reported code quality metrics Good understanding of integration patterns (especially between Public and On-premises applications)
Optional Skills	Basic understanding of features offered by all Azure services Ability to write Powershell scripts Basic understanding of deployment tools such as Octopus Deploy Use of "Visual Studio Online" service	In addition to Cloud Developer, following additional skills are required: Basic understanding of Virtualization enviornments/  Hyper-V hypervisor and its impact on performance and security Basic understanding of NoSQL databases Good understanding of security related coding best practices and features offered by .NET platform; Top ten issues from OWASP; Basic understanding of OWASP .NET Cheat Sheet (https://www.owasp.org/index.php/.NET_Security_Cheat_Sheet) Basic understanding of Azure reference architectures	In addition to skills outlined for Senior Cloud Developer, following additional skills are required: Basic understanding of various possible use-cases in Cloud in-general and Azure in-specific Deep understanding of Azure reference architectures Drive to explore feasibility of using new technologies to solve specific customer problems Basic understanding of multi-tenancy architectures Ability to design and program using NoSQL databases Understanding of any one Cloud agnostic library and ability to leverage similar design principles in own sub-systems
Certification (Optional)	None	Developing Windows Azure and Web Services	Developing Windows Azure and Web Services
Supervision	Close supervision required	Works with average supervision	Works with minimal supervision
Line reporting	Reports to Project Manager	Reports to Project Manager	Reports to Project Manager
Interactions	With Whom: Technical team; No customer interaction	With Whom: Technical team; No customer interaction	With Whom: Technical team; Project Manager; Customers from design phase onwards (Architects manage customer interactions during DD, Requirements and Architecture definition phases)

Proposed Java AWS Cloud Developer Profiles

	Cloud Developer	Senior Cloud Developer	Technical Lead - Cloud
Role Definition	Technical member of AWS development team, writes code, unit test and perform bug fixes on AWS platform	Technical member of AWS development team, contributes towards high level design of relatively less complex modules using Object oriented and Cloud design patterns; Writes code and performs unit testing and reviews work of Cloud Developers	Technical leader of a team responsible for a AWS based sub-system/ module. Interacts with customer during design phases (after architecture phase) and beyond.
Pre-Requisites	Good understanding of Java/J2EE platform No prior understanding of Cloud is required	Good understanding of Java/J2EE platform Ability to design relatively less complex modules No prior understanding of Cloud is required	Excellent understanding of Java/J2EE platform Ability to independently design complex sub-systems/ modules No prior understanding of Cloud is required
Mandatory Skills	Good understanding of Cloud environment,  deployment models and AWS basics Basic understanding of key AWS services * Ability to program using AWS SDK for Java Ability to use Command-line tools for various AWS services Ability to program using at least one scripting language (Python or Perl) Understanding of RESTful and SOAP based Web Services Working knowledge of applicable OS (Windows, Linux/Unix) Ability to use AWS Management Console for applicable services	In addition to Cloud Developer skills, following additional skills are required: Deep understanding of key AWS services including aspects such as security, performance, availability etc. Understanding of AWS design patterns and ability to apply those Understanding of monitoring capabilities available on AWS, ability to derive actions from the reports and implement them Ability to write code that handles transient failures Basic understanding of Continuous Integration and code quality metrics	In addition to Senior Cloud Developer skills, following additional skills are required: Ability to understand architecture documents defined by Architect(s) and follow during implementation Ability to design complex sub-systems and technically supervise and own implementation, testing and deployment Deep understanding of AWS security best practices and ability to design secure sub-systems ** Deep understanding of Cloud deployment models Deep understanding of applicable OS Ability to drive successful implementation of Continuous Integration; Derive/Take actions based on reported code quality metrics Good understanding of integration patterns (especially between Public and On-premises applications)
Optional Skills	Basic understanding of features offered by all AWS services Ability to write shell scripts on Linux/Unix platforms Basic understanding of deployment tools such as Chef, Puppet etc.	In addition to skills outlined for Cloud Developer, following additional skills are required: Basic understanding of Virtualization environments/ Xen hypervisor and its impact on performance and security; Various Virtual Machine formats Good understanding of security related coding best practices, top ten issues from OWASP and ESAPI library Basic understanding of NoSQL databases Basic understanding of AWS reference architectures	In addition to skills outlined for Senior Cloud Developer, following additional skills are required: Basic understanding of various possible use-cases in Cloud in general and specifically AWS Deep understanding of AWS reference architectures Drive to explore feasibility of using new technologies to solve specific customer problems Basic understanding of multi-tenancy architectures Ability to design and program using NoSQL databases Understanding of any one Cloud agnostic library and ability to leverage similar design principles in own sub-systems
Certification (Optional)	None	AWS Certified Developer - Associate	AWS Certified Developer - Associate
Supervision	Close supervision required	Works with average supervision	Works with minimal supervision
Line reporting	Reports to Project Manager	Reports to Project Manager	Reports to Project Manager
Interactions	With Whom: Technical team; No customer interaction	With Whom: Technical team; No customer interaction	With Whom: Technical team; Project Manager; Customers from design phase onwards (Architects manage customer interactions during DD, Requirements and Architecture definition phases)
* Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2); Elastic Block Storage (EBS); Relational Database System (RDS); Elastic Load Balancer (ELB); Simple Storage Service (S3); Identity and Access Management (AWS); ElastiCache; Simple Queue Service (SQS); Simple Notification Service (SNS); CloudFront; DynamoDB; SimpleDB
** May need understanding of one or more of these:  Multi-factor authentication (MFA); X.509 certificates; Public Key Infrastructure (PKI); Symmetric and Asymmetric encryption algorithms (AES, DES & RSA etc.); Hashing algorithms (MD5, SHA-1 & SHA-2 etc.); SSL/TLS; Claim based security/ Security Tokens; Federated identity; Stateful and stateless firewalls; Port scans; IP spoofing; IPsec; Intrusion Detection System (IDS); OS hardening; Hardware Security Module (HSM); Understanding of cheat sheets available at https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Cheat_Sheets#tab=Main

Cloud Guidelines

Area	Title	Description	Platform specific
Architecture, Testing	HA environment, Failover Testing	Have capability to artificially fail any system component. The system should recover from failure and still meet NFRs	All
Design	Check feasibility of abstracting the Cloud provider API	Helps support Cloud agnostic development and avoid vendor lock-in; Faster time to market since developers need not learn different APIs from multiple cloud vendors	All
Coding	Static analysis	Make sure static analysis is incorporated into build process - High quality changes are more important in cloud environment than in non-cloud environment	All
Architecture	Multi-cloud usage	Evaluate services from multiple cloud providers and chose the one that suits the requirements the most; Architect application to be able to handle multi-cloud (Both private and public) environments	All
Architecture	Application bifurcation	Evaluate if an application needs to be broken up to use private cloud for some functionality and public for others	All
Security	Use appropriate algorithms	Use AES 256 bit symmetric encryption to encrypt sensitive data at rest Use RSA 2096 bits or higher for certificates Use SHA2-256 or higher for hash and message digest	All
Security	Security boundary	Divide security responsibilities clearly between cloud provider and consumer; Define trust boundary clearly too	All
Security	Key storage	Do not store sensitive keys on your own if your cloud provider provides service for key/certificate management	All
Architecture	Difference between claimed and actual SLAs	Ascertain any gap between claimed and actual SLAs and architect with the lower number in mind. Don't blindly rely on numbers published by Cloud provider	All
Architecture	Conformance to standards	Check if a Cloud service meets any industry standard and give it a higher rating than the one which does not	All
Deployment	Repeatable and automated	Make deployment completely automated	All
Security	Security planning	Plan for handling security breaches and how do you recover from them. This plan may include notifying customers that a breach has occurred and how are they impacted because of the breach	All
Architecture	Software fatigue	Consider automatically replacing instances (that have been running for quite some time) with fresh instances to avoid software fatigue (undetected memory leaks etc.)	All
Architecture	Put dynamic data near computing infrastructure and static data near users	Keep dynamic data near computing instances - (For example, move data to Cloud first before processing); Move static data closer to users to avoid latency (for example through AWS CloudFront)	All
Security	Protect cloud credentials	Rotate keys on a regular basis; Do not store keys on Cloud infrastructure or storage Make sure certificates are renewed on an annual basis Use multi-factor authentication wherever feasible Use cloud infrastructure to store keys wherever such a service is available	All
Security	Reduce attack surface	Keep attack surface as low as possible by limiting number of ports that are open and the IP's to which those ports are open	All
Security	Certifications	Check and make sure the Cloud provider meets the minimum set of applicable certifications (such as HIPPA, security etc.) and audit requirements	All
General	Pricing	Always check if there is room for any price related negotiation with Cloud provider. Cloud provider may be ready to offer volume based discounts beyond published rates	All
Software development	Guidelines	Publish cloud specific coding guidelines to the team at the start of the development to avoid any surprises later	All
Architecture	Tagging cloud resources	See if Cloud provider allows you to tag/name resources and make use of the tags to manage cloud infrastructure more easily and efficiently. Naming convention/requirements should be established as part of Cloud deployment plan before actual roll-out	All
Architecture	Disable MySQL binary logs incase of large database loads	MySQL Binary logging incurs significant costs and should be disabled in case of large data loads	AWS
Testing	Simulate customer distribution	Use Cloud's datacenters spread across the world to simulate the customers spread across the globe and test for latency they are likely to experience. Having databases spread across the globe (and working as read replicas) and CDNs are some of the choices to provide better customer experience	All
Architecture	Handle possibility of longer disruptions	Cloud provider's implementation may have bugs and the service may see long duration of interruptions much beyond committed SLAs. Sometimes, given the scale of cloud provider, the service interruption may turn grave and result in domino effect (with one service knocking off other services). Always architect with failure in mind.	All
Security	Consider using IDS/IPS in Cloud environments	Use SNORT (an open source IDS) to protect your infrastructure; Snort is usually the first outward facing component. Snort can in turn send incoming requests to load balancers/web servers etc. Also Restful APIs should be protected by an API gateway (such as Oracle API gateway) that protects against DoS attacks, bad input etc.	All

Cloud Reference Architecture

Platform	Use case	Reference Architecture
AWS	Multiple	http://aws.amazon.com/architecture/‎
Azure	Desktop Hosting	http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39285
NIST	General	http://www.nist.gov/customcf/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=909505
Rackspace	Multiple	http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/rackspace-open-cloud-reference-architecture
Oracle	General	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/entarch/oracle-wp-cloud-ref-arch-1883533.pdf
IBM	General	https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/Wf3cce8ff09b3_49d2_8ee7_4e49c1ef5d22/page/IBM%20Cloud%20Computing%20Reference%20Architecture%203.0
Ubuntu	General	http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud/tools/openstack/reference-architecture

s3stat.com

Check out s3stat.com for AWS CloudFront and S3 log based reporting. Its interesting site and that too at very low cost. Logging needs to be enabled explicitly for these services. The logs are stored again in an S3 bucket and this service needs complete access to the bucket. It costs USD 5/month ONLY!