Intoduction: Emerging Job Roles

What is the difference between the Cloud Architect and DevOps Engineer? These new roles with growth of Cloud technologies has increased the confusion about roles? In this article, we will try to demystify some of concepts related to both job roles and try to provide clarity about the Cloud Architect and DevOps Engineer and the difference between them. Let’s start with a short introduction to both.

Who is a Cloud Architect?

A Cloud Architect is a technical expert who designs the infrastructure of cloud-based servers and systems by taking the customer or business requirements in the mind.

People often mistake Cloud Administrator and Cloud Engineer for Cloud Architect. The Cloud Administrator manages and oversees the Cloud Operations whereas the Cloud Architect design and remodels them.

They are reflective in the approach. They overlook the problems in the existing infrastructure and designs and reflect the mistakes and create a new infrastructure for the business.

Roles & Responsibilities of Cloud Architect

Here are the roles and responsibilities of the Cloud Architect –

• They decide the operating procedures, data migration, development operations, etc…
• Deep knowledge of programming knowledge like Java, PHP, Python, etc… And they should also have experience or a strong understanding of cloud-based platforms like Azure, AWS, and GCP, etc…
• They should have a futuristic approach and record the designs for future use.
• Communicates the designs to the other staff, engineers, and technicians and guides them.
• He/she determines how the cloud infrastructure should be designed and how it should be used to meet the final customers’ needs.
• The Cloud Architect has to communicate with the major stakeholders and other third parties and convince them to initiate new and innovative methods.

What is DevOps Engineer?

DevOps is expanded as the Development Operations. It is the framework of Software development that acts as a bridge between the development team and the Operations team. The role acts as the bridge between Cloud Operations and Cloud Development.

The prime motive of DevOps is to reduce the barriers in traditional software development and make the process fast and efficient. DevOps team includes the cloud Engineers, cloud technicians, Data managers, Cloud administrators, etc…

In small organizations, there will be only two positions like Cloud Architect and Cloud engineer, but if the organizations were large then they should adopt a DevOps team consisting of various personalities.

Difference between the Cloud Architect and DevOps Engineer

From the above definition, you should have got a basic idea of what we are talking about. From the table given below, you can understand the difference between Architect and DevOps team in a Cloud Platform.

PARAMETER	CLOUD ARCHITECT	DEVOPS ENGINEER
Organizational position	Leader, decision-maker, and organizer of the Cloud Computing	A Mediator – Acts as a bridge between the development team and operation team.
Focus	Focus on the organizational goals and ensure all the needs and requirements are fulfilled in the design.	The DevOps Engineer mainly focuses on the developmental process. He tries to make it fast and reliable.
Area of Work	Planning and Designing – look for new upgrades and involve in innovation.	A DevOps engineer is responsible for various Development operations and Software application in the cloud platform (Cluster)
Qualifications	Bachelor or master degree in computer engineering and cloud-based certifications, or in any related field	Bachelor’s degree or basic knowledge in Cloud platforms and deep practical skills.
Duties	Communicates with high authorities like the CEO, CTO, business vendors, and suggests to them about new Cloud technologies and methods to adopt them.	The DevOps engineer communicates with both the operation and development team and forms a perfect development plan thinking of both sides.
Ranking	He/she ranks above all the technical Personals involved in cloud-based solutions.	His/her ranking may differ from the organization. He/she might be equal or sub-ordinate to the Cloud Architect.
Alternative	Replaces the place of Cloud Administrator	In short firms, the role is replaced with Cloud Engineer, tech-consultant, and programmers.

Download the difference table here.

Are you still confused? Okay, let me explain this to you in an understandable way.

Assume DevOps Engineer as a builder and Cloud Architect as an Engineer. A builder will know how to build, how to put the bricks, and how to efficiently use the building tools. The Engineer designs the plan including the ventilation, wire connections details.

The same applied to software development. If you have any further questions please leave them in the comment section.

Continue Reading:

Cloud Engineer vs DevOps Engineer

DevOps vs NetOps

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