Rajesh Daswani is a Cloud Infrastructure Solutions Architect, technical author, and Senior Trainer at Revolent. He has over 20 years of hands-on IT infrastructure design and implementation experience, covering both on-premise and cloud-based solutions, for a wide range of clients across different geographical regions and industry verticals. He has spent the last 10 years focusing on AWS (Amazon Web Services). We caught up with him to find out why he thinks AWS is a future-proof career choice, what skills are essential for those who are new to the platform, and what’s the first step they should take to kick–start an incredible career in the cloud.
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Q&A with Rajesh Daswani,
Senior Trainer at Revolent
First things first, could you tell us a bit about your background in the tech industry and AWS?
Sure. I’ve been working in the IT industry for 20 years. I started out in the Microsoft ecosystem, working with lots of Microsoft infrastructure products and services. I was part of the IT support personnel initially, helping end-users and back operations work more effectively. So that involved a lot of incident and problem management within the technologies that Microsoft provides for a range of companies. This included identity management, email solutions, the equivalent of SharePoint and Teams. It was a different story 20 years ago in terms of the type of products you had, but it was similar. So, you had email, and you had identity services, as well as access management and file management services, and so on.
I then moved onto a client-facing consultancy role, where I designed solutions for those clients across Microsoft’s suite of offerings. At that point, AWS was really getting underway. AWS started around about 2006, really pushing the cloud computing capabilities beyond what was imaginable at that point in time, and I got interested in AWS around about 2010. I got some opportunities to migrate to client solutions that were on-premise to the AWS platform. That got me really excited—I really enjoyed the work and I started doing a lot of projects that way for various clients, developing my skill-sets alongside that in parallel.
And it’s been a fantastic journey because I’ve had the experience of multi-cloud environments. So, Microsoft Azure as well as AWS. Thanks to this varied experience, I’ve been able to compare and contrast solutions for clients, and come up with the best possible solution for them, taking cost into account, which is obviously a key determining factor for many clients.
Why did you decide to become a Trainer?
Well, about four years ago I decided to move into training. I’ve always been keen to do this throughout my career journey anyway. Often times in my work, I would be delivering either internal training or end-user computer training, so it was always at the back of my mind. I knew I would enjoy this at some point if I pursued training as a career. So, I made a career shift from a Solutions Architect Consultant to Trainer, helping a lot of IT professionals move into the cloud space. It’s been incredibly rewarding to see so many people being able to upskill themselves, and continue to build their careers as well. So that’s where I am today!
You’ve had 10 years of experience in AWS. Why did you decide to focus on AWS specifically?
As I said, back in 2006, AWS was taking the cloud computing world by storm. So, I was quite keen to get into this sphere that was new at the time, but I didn’t actually venture out into working with AWS. I slowly migrated to AWS because opportunities were coming up with clients to find the best approach when they were looking to move to the cloud. They were asking: should they go to Microsoft Azure or should they go to AWS? My work for them involved doing some requirements, analysis and understanding the existing on-premise workloads.
And at that time when I first started off—my first project was probably back in 2010—there were certain key features and solutions on AWS that weren’t as mature as on the Microsoft side of things. So, it made logical sense for me to go with AWS. At the end of the day, it’s imperative to see what the client requires, rather than just deliver a certain technology for technology’s sake, right?
So, if the technology fit well with the business requirements, if it was cost-effective, if it was secure, and all of that stuff, then that was important to the end goals of the business. That nudged me even more into AWS. Because, at that time, AWS was churning out all these technologies and these capabilities much faster and much quicker than Microsoft was, at that time.
How did you come to work for Revolent? How long have you been with the company, and what do you enjoy most about working here?
I’ve worked as a Trainer for four years now, and I’ve been with Revolent for just over a year now. I was doing a lot of contracting work as a Trainer, and I got approached on LinkedIn by a recruiter.
Obviously, Revolent is well-known in the Salesforce ecosystem. To build on that success and become the world’s leading cloud talent creation company, they were very keen to move into the ‘AWS waters’. One of their clients, an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner, were looking to train ten new Revols into AWS.
In terms of what I enjoy the most, it has to be the fact that there’s a lot of flexibility and a lot of openness to different approaches that can be incorporated as part of delivering training services. This could be in the way the content is created, or the way it’s delivered and tailored to clients. Essentially, what I love is that there’s room for experimentation and plenty of opportunities to expand and improve methods of delivering those training modules.
We’ve all heard about the lucrative careers in the cloud. Why do you think AWS in particular is a future-proof career choice?
AWS pretty much started the core concept of public cloud computing. It always existed in some form or another with the likes of YahooMail or Hotmail, they’re all forms of cloud computing at the end of the day. But AWS was able to package an entire end-to-end solution across a wide suite of products for different clients and present that from a cloud perspective, available as a cloud offering.
And the biggest advantage of ‘going cloud’ for businesses and organizations was the security and cost benefit, as opposed to trying to build an environment yourself.
So, I would say, AWS was the first in the game to make this go mainstream in terms of what’s available and the technologies they offer. And over the years, they’ve been going non-stop as far as innovation is concerned.
As a result, AWS currently own about 33% of the total cloud market share. They’re the leaders and have been the leaders in the cloud space for the last five or six years now, as per Gartner’s Magic Quadrant. And there’s no doubt that they’re going to continue at this pace. They’re coming out with new technologies, they’re always innovating, they always put the customer first. And being very customer-centric is what’s driven how AWS has progressed, so I think they are going to continue on that track for much, much further into the future.
How does Revolent’s AWS careers program work? How is it different to other AWS training programs out there?
I’d say it’s very different from your normal training programs that you get from training providers out there, insofar as it’s not only exam focused, and it’s not just a three-day course or a five-day course, the whole purpose of which is to get you that AWS certification.
Our courses are extended by as much as three weeks for some particular tracks because we want to provide you with the necessary coverage of the syllabus for you to properly prepare for the exam, that’s our key driving force. But we also want our Revols to get a lot of hands-on experience in building real-world solutions rather than just sandbox environments, which are highly secured, and only allow you to play around a little bit. Instead, what we do is we give them real accounts, real AWS environments to work in, and we give them a lot of extended labs and assignments to go through that mimic real-world projects that those Revols are likely to experience when they go out to work at a client’s site.
This is probably a question that lots of people would be asking. Is the training offered remotely?
At this point in time, the training is offered fully remotely and there isn’t any real requirement to come in person. Now, that might be different a little bit later because the AWS tracks are looking to improve in the way the Revol is being tested from their practical experience point of view. So, things may change over time as the certification tracks from AWS mature. AWS certification tracks started back in 2013, so they’re fairly new, compared to the Microsoft certifications, for example. However, the AWS certification tracks are rapidly maturing, and you’re going to find that a lot of AWS certifications now require you to showcase your ability to practically deploy a particular solution. And while that can be done remotely, in some cases, I suspect that as time goes by, there will be more classroom requirements for you to actually come and tinker and fix things, and see how things work in a more group exercise manner, for example. It can still all be done remotely. But, as the AWS tracks mature, there may be a need to pass them in a classroom setting in the future.
What do you think is the biggest advantage of cross-training with Revolent as opposed to someone just working through the AWS certification tracks on their own and taking exams?
One of the biggest challenges with self-study is discipline and motivation. Yes, it can be achieved with self-study, by all means. It requires, however, a lot of self-discipline in terms of how much time you give yourself to prepare for those certifications. A lot of people who are trying to prepare for these certs on their own… Well, it just falls by the wayside because, you know, life takes over! You’re busy with work, you’re busy with family and all of that stuff.
But by taking time out from work and getting paid to join Revolent’s program, you’ll be able to fully focus on that. Our whole purpose is to get you prepped, trained, and skilled up in AWS, and get you to successfully pass your AWS certification exams. That’s why 87% of our Revols pass their exams first time round.
Are there any essential skills that someone considering a career in AWS absolutely needs to have?
In terms of essential skills, there’s two things, really. Obviously, there is the approach and the personality of the individual. So, having a logical mindset and being analytical is crucial because anything to do with AWS is all about the logical flow of different processes and workflows. So, if you have a logical mindset and you have a passion for technical approaches, whether that’s in IT or elsewhere—such as engineering or electrics, or being a DIY enthusiast. Whatever it may be, if it’s a logical approach that you enjoy and you’re able to grasp, then from a personal perspective, that’s going to help you a lot.
From a technical standpoint, being able to work with different technical concepts or being open to the fact that you might need to get into some level of coding, is another factor that will really make you successful. Now, you don’t necessarily have to become a fully-fledged developer or programmer because there are different tracks to follow. There’s an AWS infrastructure track, a systems operations track, and then you’ve got the developer tracks as well. But if you have no aversion to being able to sit down at a computer and go through a piece of code, and to spending a lot of time trying to fix issues with that code, and if you’re not going to get overwhelmed by it, then that’s going to help you a lot as well.
And how does Revolent help teach these essential skills?
In the program, especially in the Foundational stage, there are introductions to logical concepts of the way the different technologies work. In terms of networking, for instance, we talk a little bit about the fundamentals of how networking architectures are built and how one device communicates to another device, for example. So, we go down to the basics of IP addressing and things like that.
As you progress through our courses, you are then introduced to some level of scripting, some level of coding from an operations point of view at least—unless you’re taking one of our AWS DevOps Specialist routes, in which case you’ll dive deeper into the developer side of things.
But throughout all of our AWS careers programs you do get introduced to various concepts, logical approaches, patterns, and technologies across different services. So, compute services, networking services, databases, and so on, at a 101 level. There is a good introduction to all of those concepts so that you can start grasping them even if you’re new to IT.
If you’re talking to an IT professional who’s interested in cross-training and becoming an AWS specialist, what advice would you give them as a starting point?
I think the most important thing is to take stock of where you are in your career right now, and try and look at where you’re going. So, if you’re working at a particular company in a particular IT role, you want to ask yourself what’s the future of that role? If it’s got a future, if it’s moving into the cloud computing space—because that’s where everything is going—then what you want to ask yourself is this: Are you in a team where there’s a lot of development happening with the new technologies that are coming out?
Because if that’s not the case, then it’s very easy to get stagnated when the technology moves on. If you feel that there is some level of stagnation, if you’re not growing or developing much, then you want to explore other opportunities within the company that you’re currently working at, to see whether they are looking at any projects you could potentially get involved with. And it might be that those projects involve a lot of cloud computing and even AWS workloads and services.
At that stage, by taking such a project on, you will be in a better position to then understand which area or which technology components or services within the cloud space you would be interested in. That could be anything, including infrastructure, development, data analytics or machine learning, for instance.
And accordingly, you can then reach a conclusion about which AWS certification track or what type of training you require. At that point, obviously come to Revolent! We offer a wide range of different training options.
And if someone is undecided about which cloud technology to specialize in, what advice would you give that individual to help them choose?
Again, it’s going to come down to how many years you’ve spent working in the role you’re currently doing, because that’s going to tell you what skills you already have, and what skills you should look to build.
Unless you’re completely averse to, or absolutely hate the job that you’re doing; that’s a different ball game altogether! In that scenario, you need to really get down to the basics and evaluate what your passion is. Do you enjoy tinkering with trying to fix hardware, or are you someone who wants to build new applications? That’s the sort of decision you have to make.
But, assuming you do enjoy what you’re doing and you’ve been working at your company for some time, then coming to a decision about what types of technologies you want to work with in the cloud industry is going to come down to one question—how much do you enjoy the work that you’re doing? And if that’s the case, consider the cloud options available to you.
If you’re specifically working at an on-premise setup, what cloud alternatives are there for the same type of work that you’re doing? For example, if you’re a Server Administrator or if you go to client sites and encourage them to build out new email solutions, whatever it is that you do in your current job, what is the cloud alternative for that? Because the cloud is where all businesses are going to go, simply because cloud solutions are more cost-effective, highly secure, highly available and resilient for the end user. So that’s a good way to start.
What, would you say, are the top three most sought-after AWS cloud specialist roles and certifications right now?
In terms of AWS certifications, I’d say the most in-demand are the AWS Certified Solutions Architect: Professional,
AWS DevOps Engineer: Professional, and the AWS Certified Security: Specialty.
There’s currently a huge demand for AWS DevOps Engineers who can incorporate DevOps principles, application design, development and release for businesses. In essence, businesses are not really concerned about the underlying infrastructure. It doesn’t do anything for them—it’s like the cabling in your house. They’re more interested in what lightbulbs they can install. So, it’s the application that matters to the business. As a result of that, DevOps is a really fast-growing, extremely sought-after skill set.
