Cloud Ready in 50 Practical Steps

The groundwork you need to build your first Cloud Project!

Author

Vishakha Sadhwani
August 31, 2025

Hi Inner Circle,

If you’ve been trying to learn cloud but keep running into scattered tutorials, random YouTube playlists, and trial accounts that burn out before you even know what to do with them — you’re not alone.

It’s hard to know where to start, what to learn first, and how to build skills that actually stick.

That’s why this edition lays out a clear 7-week path — no fluff, just a step-by-step roadmap to help you go from “I’ve heard of cloud apps” to “I can deploy, secure, and monitor basic cloud infrastructure.”

Let’s break it down, week by week..

Week 1: Cloud Foundations (Don't Open Your Free Clou Account Yet)

This week is all about building a mental framework. Understanding the why before the how is critical.

  1. What is Cloud Computing? Understand core concepts like elasticity, scalability, high availability, and fault tolerance.

  2. Deployment Models: Know the difference between Public (AWS, GCP, Azure), Private, Hybrid, and Multi-cloud.

  3. Service Models: Grasp the three pillars: IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), and SaaS (Software as a Service).

  4. On-Prem vs. Cloud: Learn the shift from CAPEX (Capital Expenditure) to OPEX (Operational Expenditure).

  5. Intro to SDLC: Understand the basic flow: Dev → Test → Prod → Release cycles.

  6. Git Basics: The foundation of modern code management. Get comfortable with git init, clone, commit, push, and pull.

  7. Linux Basics: The terminal is your best friend. Practice shell navigation (cd, ls, pwd) and file commands (cat, touch, rm, cp, mv).

  8. Cloud Access Methods: Know your tools: The Web Console (UI), the Command-Line Interface (CLI), and Software Development Kits (SDKs).

  9. Billing Concepts: Understand pay-as-you-go, the limits of the free tier, and the importance of setting budgets and alerts from day one.

Action Item for Week 1: Practice Git, Linux, and review some youtube videos on how to access cloud environments (whichever provider you prefer)

Week 2: IAM & Networking (Time to Get Hands-On)

Now you can open that free-tier account. This week is about securing your environment and building its digital skeleton.

  1. IAM Concepts: Understand Identities (who you are) vs. Access (what you can do) and the principle of least privilege.

  2. Authentication vs. Authorization: AuthN (logging in) vs. AuthZ (permissions). How does the cloud know who you are and what you're allowed to touch?

  3. IAM Roles & Policies: The building blocks of cloud security. Learn how to attach policies to users, groups, and roles.

  4. Virtual Private Cloud (VPC): Your isolated network in the cloud. Get familiar with CIDR ranges for network sizing.

  5. Subnets: Segmenting your VPC into public (internet-facing) and private (internal) zones.

  6. Route Tables & Gateways: Learn how traffic is directed within your VPC and out to the internet (via an Internet Gateway or NAT Gateway).

  7. Security Groups / Firewalls: Your instance-level firewalls. Master inbound/outbound rules, ports, and protocols.

Action Item for Week 2: Log in to your new cloud account. Create a new IAM user with limited permissions. Then, create a custom VPC with one public and one private subnet. Try to launch a VM in the private subnet and see if you can access the internet (you shouldn't be able to without a NAT Gateway!). Delete everything before you log off.

Weeks 3 & 4: Compute (From VMs to Kubernetes)

This two-week sprint is intense but crucial. We're working backward from deployment, covering the most common ways to run applications.

  1. Virtual Machine (VM) Launch + SSH: Spin up a basic Linux VM, SSH into it, and install a web server like Nginx.

  2. Snapshots & Images: Learn to back up your VM's state and create reusable custom images (like an AMI in AWS).

  3. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Intro: Use Terraform or CloudFormation to define and launch that same VM using code. This is a non-negotiable modern skill.

  4. Docker Basics: Containerize that Nginx application using a Dockerfile. Practice docker build, run, ps, logs, and exec.

  5. Container Registries: Push your new Docker image to a registry like Docker Hub, ECR, or GCR.

  6. Deploying on PaaS: Explore platform services like AWS Elastic Beanstalk or Google App Engine. Deploy a simple app from a Git push or your Docker container.

  7. Serverless Functions: Get an introduction to AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, or Azure Functions.

  8. Write an HTTP Trigger Function: Create a simple "Hello World" function that returns a JSON response when triggered by an HTTP GET request.

  9. Kubernetes Basics: Understand the core components: Pods, Deployments, and Services. Set up a local cluster using minikube or kind.

  10. Deploy & Expose an App on K8s: Take your containerized Nginx app and deploy it to your local cluster using kubectl apply. Expose it with a Service.

Action Item for Weeks 3 & 4: The goal here is reps. Deploy the same simple web application using three different methods: on a raw VM, as a container on a PaaS, and on your local Kubernetes cluster. Note the differences in effort and control. And remember: delete clusters, VMs, and registries after you use them to avoid costs.

Week 5: Storage & Databases

Your applications need to store data. This week, we cover the main options.

  1. Storage Types: Understand the fundamental differences between Object, Block, and File storage and their primary use cases.

  2. Object Storage: Create a bucket (like S3), upload some files, and configure a lifecycle rule to automatically delete them after a few days.

  3. Block Storage: Attach an extra storage volume (like EBS) to your VM, format it, and mount it.

  4. Managed SQL Databases: Create a managed relational database (like RDS or Cloud SQL) and learn how to connect to it from your VM.

  5. NoSQL Basics: Explore the concepts behind DynamoDB, Firestore, or Cosmos DB. Understand the difference in structure and access patterns from SQL.

  6. Database Backups & Snapshots: Configure automated backups for your managed database.

  7. Encryption at Rest: Learn how to enable default encryption for your storage and databases using managed keys.

Action Item for Week 5: Create a storage bucket and configure it to host a simple, static HTML website. This is a classic, practical use case for object storage.

Week 6: Cloud Security

  1. Shared Responsibility Model: Deeply understand what you are responsible for securing vs. what the cloud provider secures.

  2. Identity Best Practices: Enforce MFA everywhere. Understand key rotation policies for access keys.

  3. Key Management (KMS): Create an encryption key and use the CLI to encrypt and decrypt a small piece of text.

  4. Secrets Management: Learn about tools like AWS Secrets Manager, GCP Secret Manager, or HashiCorp Vault for storing database credentials and API keys securely.

  5. Security Scanning: Get an overview of Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) tools like AWS Config or Azure Security Center that scan for misconfigurations. (can skip if need be, if it’s too much)

Action Item for Week 6: Review cloud-specific best practices, and review IAM here again.

Week 7: Observability & Operations

If you can't see what's happening, you can't fix it. Welcome to observability.

  1. Monitoring 101: Learn the "three pillars of observability": Metrics, Logs, and Traces.

  2. Cloud Monitoring Tools: Explore the native tools: AWS CloudWatch, GCP Cloud Monitoring, or Azure Monitor.

  3. Build a Dashboard: Create a simple dashboard showing the CPU utilization, memory usage, and network traffic for one of your test VMs.

  4. Create Alerts: Set up a threshold-based alert that sends you an email if CPU utilization on your VM goes above 70% for 5 minutes.

  5. Incident Response Basics: Practice the cycle: Reproduce an error → read the logs → diagnose the root cause → resolve.

  6. Simulate Load: Use a simple tool like ab (Apache Bench) or hey to send traffic to your web server and watch the metrics on your dashboard change.

  7. Postmortem Culture: Understand the purpose of a blameless postmortem: What went wrong, what did we learn, and how can we prevent it from happening again?

Action Item for Week 7: Explore Cloud logging, monitoring, alerting and tracing tools - create simple workflows and alerts to get familiar with the services.

Where to Go From Here

Now it's time to build on it.

  • Redo: Revisit any week that felt rushed. The goal is comprehension, not just completion.

  • Document Everything: Create a GitHub repository for your journey. Add your Terraform code, Dockerfiles, and notes. This becomes your portfolio.

  • Start Building: Pick a small project. Containerize a personal app, build a serverless API, or set up a CI/CD pipeline to deploy a static site.

Across every role I've had, from writing Bash scripts to managing Kubernetes clusters, this foundational knowledge has been the constant.

You now have the roadmap to build yours.

More deep dives coming soon.

— Vishakha

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