Veterans Track
Introduction to Cloud Architectures
Cloud architecture from a software architect's lens — covering architecture layers, deployment types, service models, well-architected pillars, integration ecosystem, governance, compliance, FinOps, resilience and sustainability.
Domain 01 · Architecture Layers & Core Components
Physical Layer
Bare-metal servers, data centre facilities, power and cooling systems, and physical network fabric. The foundation all cloud abstraction is built upon.
Infrastructure Layer
Hypervisors, compute virtualisation, software-defined networking, and cloud storage abstraction. Enables elastic resource pooling.
Platform Layer
Middleware, deployment software, Kubernetes, managed databases, messaging queues, service mesh, API gateways and developer runtime environments.
Application Layer
Cloud-native applications, microservices, serverless functions, front-end delivery, SaaS applications and WebAssembly workloads.
Observability Layer
Logs, metrics, distributed traces, synthetic monitoring, AIOps and SLO dashboards form a distinct operating layer.
Data & Analytics Layer
Data mesh, lakehouse architecture, streaming pipelines, analytical stores and governance must be designed as a first-class layer.
Domain 02 · Cloud Deployment Types & Architecture Patterns
Public Cloud
Shared infrastructure operated by AWS, Azure or GCP. Requires shared-responsibility security and multi-tenancy isolation.
Private Cloud
Dedicated infrastructure for a single organisation, either on-premises or hosted, with higher control and operational responsibility.
Hybrid Cloud
On-premises and public cloud connected through Direct Connect, ExpressRoute or equivalent links with workload placement strategy.
Multi-Cloud
Two or more cloud providers used for best-of-breed services, resilience, regulatory needs or vendor independence.
Cloud-Native Architecture
12-factor applications, containers, orchestration, declarative APIs and immutable infrastructure for modern workloads.
Edge & Fog Computing
Compute pushed closer to data sources such as IoT, 5G edge and CDN compute for latency-sensitive workloads.
Domain 03 · Service Models
IaaS
On-demand compute, storage and networking with maximum control and maximum operational responsibility.
PaaS
Managed runtime, middleware, managed databases, cache and developer tooling for application development.
SaaS
Fully managed application delivered through browser or API. Architecture concerns shift to integration, portability and vendor exit.
FaaS / Serverless
Event-driven, stateless, per-invocation billed functions or serverless containers.
CaaS
Managed Kubernetes platforms such as EKS, AKS and GKE, sitting between IaaS and PaaS.
DaaS
Managed data warehouses, analytics services, data marketplace products and data delivery services.
Domain 04 · Well-Architected Pillars
Operational Excellence
Runbooks, automation, infrastructure as code, CI/CD and operational readiness for cloud workloads.
Security
Identity, encryption, audit, monitoring, secure configuration and least-privilege access.
Reliability
High availability, disaster recovery, fault tolerance, multi-AZ design and chaos engineering.
Performance Efficiency
Right-sizing, caching, workload-aware service selection and performance tuning.
Cost Optimisation
Reserved capacity, spot usage, FinOps, tagging and continuous cost governance.
Sustainability
Carbon-aware workload placement, green regions, right-sizing and measurement of cloud carbon footprint.
Resilience & Chaos
GameDays, failure injection, recovery exercises and resilience validation.
Compliance & Governance
Policy-as-code, guardrails, standards enforcement, OPA and cloud control validation.
Data Sovereignty
Residency, jurisdiction, GDPR, PDPA and regional compliance constraints.
Portability & Interoperability
Avoid lock-in through open APIs, containers, abstraction layers and documented exit strategies.
Domain 05 · Integration Ecosystem
Compute
Virtual machines, autoscaling groups, specialised compute and bare-metal workloads.
Containers
Container runtimes, registries, managed Kubernetes and orchestration.
Serverless
Functions, event triggers, serverless containers and managed execution.
Storage
Object, block, file and archive storage patterns.
Networking & CDN
VPC, DNS, load balancers, CDN, edge networking and secure connectivity.
Database
Relational, NoSQL, cache, graph, document and time-series databases.
Analytics
Warehouses, lakehouses, streaming analytics and BI platforms.
Machine Learning
Feature stores, ML platforms, model training, registry and serving.
Artificial Intelligence
LLM platforms, vector databases, AI agents and inference endpoints.
IoT
Device ingestion, telemetry, MQTT, edge processing and fleet operations.
Robotics
Cloud robotics, simulation, fleet management and edge control.
Game Tech
Game servers, matchmaking, streaming, multiplayer backends and telemetry.
Media Services
Transcoding, DRM, video delivery and live streaming.
Front-End & Mobile
Web hosting, mobile backends, APIs and CDN delivery.
Developer Tools
Cloud IDEs, CI/CD, artifact registries and code-quality services.
App Integration
Queues, event buses, workflows and API integration services.
End User Computing
VDI, app streaming and managed desktop environments.
Customer Engagement
Messaging, notifications, contact centre and engagement platforms.
Business Productivity
Collaboration, productivity suites and business workflow platforms.
Migration & Transfer
Migration tools, data transfer appliances and cloud migration factories.
Management & Governance
Cloud management, inventory, policy and compliance dashboards.
Security & Compliance
CSPM, CWPP, IAM, audit and continuous compliance.
FinOps & Cost Management
Budgets, anomaly detection, showback, chargeback and optimisation.
Observability & APM
Metrics, logs, traces, alerts and application performance monitoring.
API Management
Gateway, rate limiting, authentication, analytics and developer portals.
Data Governance
Catalogues, lineage, data policy, stewardship and governance workflows.
Identity Federation
SSO, SAML, OIDC, federation, directory integration and conditional access.
Edge Computing
CDN edge, 5G edge, local zones and low-latency compute placement.
Supply Chain Security
SBOM, signing, provenance, CI/CD hardening and artifact integrity.
Sustainability / GreenOps
Carbon reporting, green regions, workload scheduling and efficient architecture.
Domain 06 · Architectural Concerns
FinOps & Cloud Cost Governance
Tagging taxonomy, showback, chargeback, reserved instance strategy, spot usage and anomaly detection.
Infrastructure as Code
Terraform, Pulumi and CDK make cloud infrastructure version-controlled, reproducible and drift-detected.
GitOps & Deployment Pipeline
Argo CD, Flux and pipeline-as-code patterns provide declarative, auditable cloud deployments.
Service Mesh & Networking
Istio, Linkerd and AWS App Mesh provide mTLS, observability and traffic management.
Disaster Recovery & RTO/RPO
Warm standby, pilot light, active-active, RTO/RPO targets and DR validation cadence.
Domain 07 · Governance, Compliance & Sustainability
Cloud Governance Framework
Landing zone design, account vending, policy-as-code and guardrails across a cloud estate.
Regulatory & Data Sovereignty
GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS and data residency mandates require region selection, encryption and audit evidence.
GreenOps & Carbon Efficiency
Carbon-aware routing, green regions, right-sizing and cloud carbon footprint measurement.
Migration Decision Framework
The 7 Rs — Retire, Retain, Rehost, Replatform, Repurchase, Refactor and Re-architect — guide cloud migration decisions.
Chaos Engineering & SRE
SLO, SLI, SLA, error budgets and chaos experiments validate reliability under failure conditions.