Eric Berg

Well ... you are right ... the analogy get's better if you use it to compare IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. But it was also used to compare On-Prem and IaaS. And it was "Make at Home" vs. "Take and Bake" ... so, the service provider gives you a pre-made pizza ... and that is not the case in the cloud ... they give you the kitchen with the oven ... the pizza --> your server is still the same. And that needs management, security, etc.

Besides setting goals and SMART milestones I would like to bring up another important thing to define: Define your limits ... your no-go's ... your out-of-bound topics. The cloud landscape is so huge and developing so fast, and you cannot be an expert for everything. It helps to set the important milestones and also to stay sane, if you clearly define, what you do not want to achieve. A simple example ... if you want to be an expert in Cloud Infrastructure in Azure ... you might not focus on becoming a Power Platform Expert at the same time ... or try to be the best Exchange troubleshooter. Know your limits and focus on your strenghts.

I guess one of the most famous comparisons is the cloud computing expained via pizza ... from self-made pizza at home, to the pizza restaurant. That was used quite often in the beginning ... but I never really liked it, as it leaves out some important facts and also people would start thinking about taste. Compare a self-made pizza to a pizza from the freezer and you are not talking the same product. In cloud a Windows Server VM is a Windows Server VM ... "just running somewhere else" ... So, be careful with analogies ... and do not oversimplify and make sure that it still relateable.

While I agree that it can be helpful to simplify things, when explaining cloud computing, I still think it is very important to understand the technical basics. Even though you are non-technical, it would help to understand the fundamentals of cloud networking also from a technical level. Otherwise it will be difficult to really understand what is going on. Also we need to be careful with the term "Cloud" as it is still used in so many ways and forms. Some only think about public cloud ... others might only see private datacenters that are operated in a cloud way. This is why I always to a level-setting with others to make sure we are using the same terms with the same meanings.

Especially with the Public Cloud Providers you need to decide between the cloud native firewall solutions compared to 3rd party solutions. While the cloud native solutions will have the best integration into the platform which comes with benefits like: - day 0 compatibility - API / IaC compatibility - integrated monitoring / logging - "serverless" deployment without management overhead - and much more 3rd party solutions are sometimes considered first as they represent the "already known" or "matching the skills". I would recommend to challenge this legacy thinking, as cloud native solutions might not be the firewalls you are used to, but the ones best integrated into the platform