Want to be a great cloud architect? Learn Linux. Want to be a great cloud engineer?
Learn Linux. Want a great tech career in general? Learn Linux. Watch this video to find out why.
Hi, my name is Michael Gibbs and I'm the Founder and CEO of Go Cloud Architects. And
we're an organization that's dedicated towards building high performance cloud computing
and networking careers. Personally, I've been working at technology for over 25 years. And I've
been coaching or mentoring others to get their first tech job or get promoted in tech for more
than two decades. And there's the best thing in the world is when one of your students calls you
and says, "Hi, Mike. I just got cloud hired." But today, we're going to talk about Linux. Why are
we discussing Linux and why is Linux so important? Because it is the dominant operating system in the
cloud. In fact, 90% of all cloud infrastructure runs on Linux. So if you want to do anything
in the cloud, you must truly understand Linux. But it's not just the cloud that runs on Linux.
According to Hosting Tribunal in 2021, a 100% of the world's top 500 supercomputers all run Linux.
And according to, again, Hosting Tribunal, of the top 25 websites in the world,
only two aren't using Linux. And according to the same article, 96.3% of the world's top one
million servers are all running Linux. So Linux is the dominant operating system of the cloud.
Now I want you to really think about this. All the cloud servers,
all that are doing all the work, typically speaking, they run a Linux kernel,
and they run Linux hypervisors, and a Linux control plane, and they're the data plane
or the forwarding or the computing power for the cloud. So as you go through the cloud providers,
they're all going to have servers and they're all going to have basically a Linux kernel.
They're all going to have their own hypervisor. And they're going to be communicating to the
control plane or the controllers of the cloud. So the whole cloud is on Linux.
So if you want to be a cloud architect, you've got to know Linux. Let's talk about Linux's history.
In 1991, Linus Torvalds came up with the Linux kernel. In fact, Linux isn't exactly an operating
system. It's really a kernel with additional packages, but Linux goes back as far as 1991.
In fact, I think it was 1996 that I actually started working with Linux.
I remember downloading it on a dial up modem, and I think it took three days to download the two
CDs that was actually Linux. But I got to tell you, it was amazing then and it's amazing now,
although it's a lot more functional now. So let's talk about the architecture of Linux system.
And in a future video, we'll teach you about Linux commands and we'll get
much more technically deep. But I'd like you to all understand the architecture of
Linux system. See if you're a cloud architect, it's the architecture you need to understand.
But if you're a cloud engineer and you're going to be building things, you're going to have to know
how to configure them. And we'll talk about them in another video. But for either case,
for either career, you have to understand how the operating system works. In order to
be able to design systems, you must understand them. So let's talk about the baseline layer.
At the base, you've got your hardware or the hardware layer. And what is that?
That's your CPU. That's your DRAM. That's your disc. That's your hardware layer.
But that's your physical hardware. But in between the hardware and the software, you've
got something. And what are those things? We'll start next up the line with the kernel modules.
What are kernel modules? They're basically pieces of code that get loaded and unloaded upon the
kernel on demand. So basically speaking, you need a device driver that loads it into the kernel.
So where your device drivers are, they're kind of your kernel modules. They're pieces of code
that get put in and out of the kernel as needed. If you didn't have these kernel modules, you have
to reboot your system every single time. Now the next part on the way up of the Linux architecture
is the actual kernel itself. The kernel is the core of the operating system. It's responsible
for everything. Think memory management, CPU. All the hard work, it all goes through the kernel.
So as you can see, first, we start at the hardware layer, then the kernel modules,
and then the actual kernel. Now, after that, we're going to have a set of system libraries.
Now, what are these system libraries? See in program, you've got a library that's
basically pre-compiled pieces of code. And your systems are going to have systems libraries.
And your applications will call on these common system libraries to actually do their job.
And of course, above that layer, that's where your stuff is. That's your user processes,
your software, et cetera. So that's realistically speaking in the architecture of the Linux module.
So again, it starts with the hardware at the base. Then you've got your kernel modules,
your device drivers. Then you've got your kernel. Then you've got your system
libraries. And after that, you basically have your user processes. So that's how Linux works.
Now, I want you to really think about the systems that are running in Linux. Web servers,
almost completely on Linux. Servers hosting your databases, almost completely hosting on Linux.
Even your virtualization servers. When you're running server virtualization in the data center,
either using the KVM or the QEMU hypervisor that comes directly out of Linux, or maybe
you're using something like VMware ESXi. And maybe you notice your VMware ESXi looks
like DBN when you actually look at it in your systems. Where do you think that's coming from?
They're all coming from a Linux kernel. So if you want a great cloud architect career,
a great cloud engineering career, you've got to learn Linux because that's the basis of all your
servers. And as you all know, your servers are your basic infrastructure for everything
that goes on the cloud. Your servers will host your applications. Your servers will host your
containers. Your servers will host everything. So now you know where most of the servers are
running, Linux. And now you know how the operating system works. In a future video coming very soon,
some of the technical staff from my company will actually show you say the top 25 Linux commands,
how to do certain things in Linux. Because if you want to be a cloud architect or a cloud engineer,
you must know Linux. So I look forward to seeing you in another video, and we'll see you all
very soon. Thank you so much. Take care.
It was so nice having you join us for this video today. Let me tell you about some free
services we do for the cloud community. Twice per week, we have a free How to Get Your First
Cloud Architect Job webinar where we tell you all the things you need to do I know to
get your first cloud architect job. In addition to that, once per week, we actually have a free
question and answer session on live on YouTube, where you can come and ask us
any questions you want about building your career related to cloud computing
or networking. And we'll answer them in real time for you because we want to get you to your goals.
Several more times per week, we have guests from industry, industry experts that I've
known for decades that are movers and shakers that have changed the world that can give you
information so you can build the best career. I invite them periodically. They are on my show.
If there's a chance to do some free training on our channel, we'll do it live because we want
you to all to have the best skills for the best career. So please subscribe and hit the bell. I
look forward to seeing you and I look forward to assisting you in your technology career.
Thank you so much. This is Michael Gibbs from Go Cloud Architects.