Cloud Stories ep.2: Starting the cloud journey, moving to infinity, and riding back home

Cloud Stories ep.2: Starting the cloud journey, moving to infinity, and riding back home

The one thing that fascinates me most about the cloud is its omnipresence.

When I was a kid, I loved going to the playground after dinner, when it was already dark. I would lie on the grass for hours, stare at the starlit sky, and wonder where infinity ends.

When I first heard about Azure Space, how cloud computing has now elevated beyond our planet, I felt like that kid again. I was swept with a conflicting feeling of awe and powerlessness.

Mankind just took yet another step to infinity. But are my legs long enough to keep up?

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Back here on Earth, the situation looks more grounded. In fact, it's in stark contrast to the roominess of space life. I haven't been on a plane for 18 months. I use less than 1000 square meters of the planet's land. And I definitely have a harder time defying gravity today than a year ago.

But why do we always have to go somewhere else? What is it that makes us want to constantly move? Can we find one reason to stay for good?

I remember the first time I created a free account on Azure and deployed an ASP.net app on an app service. As a girl who used to carry a server for a customer demo, aboard a non-air-conditioned bus on a four-hour trip, I was, for the lack of a better word, flabbergasted.

No more moving servers around. They're just all over the world now.

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As soon as I realized that I can work anywhere, I packed 21 kilos worth of my life, and moved. With no desktop computer in tow, and only armed with my off the chart optimism, I flew to the land where happy people abound.

It was here I got to start working with the cloud. But it was initially more a necessity than a choice. I was ill-equipped and lacking experience, so I knew I had to sharpen my skills to survive my new terrain.

I started with the simple tasks, the one's I was already familiar with. How can I start a VM? How to choose where to run my app? Which databases can I store my data in?

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Once you start the engine, the rest becomes your own journey.

And it never stops.

Why should it, when there's an immense space for us to run our proudly human-made machines on.

There are times, though, when I think about my old playground. Are the swings still intact? Do Gumamelas still bloom in the heat of April? What if I stayed? Would the stars still be looking back at me at night?

We have our own reasons to go anywhere our dreams can take us. But that shouldn't mean we have to forget where we came from. Maybe where we are at the moment is not the best place to be. It's too small. It's too hot, it's too cold. The traffic is hell, people are perishing, and nobody knows what they're doing.

By all means go where you must. I won't be the one to stop you.

But when you finally get to where you wanted to be, please remember our home. Once in a while, call me. Then we can ride the bus together back to the old town, and perhaps, turn it to a place worth looking at the sky from.


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