Soaring above the clouds means understanding how to fly, and one enterprise tech company has set out to train a squadron of cloud networking aces.

Aviatrix Systems Inc. has launched a program to certify technical professionals and cloud practitioners in multicloud networking and security. The Aviatrix Certified Engineer, or ACE, program focuses on basic networking concepts and equips participants with an understanding of native constructs in Amazon Web Services Inc., Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

“One of the critical gaps that we found is people having the networking background,” said Jennifer Reed (pictured, second from left), strategic solution director and principal consultant at Viqtor Davis. “You graduate from college and you have a lot of computer science background, you can program, you’ve got Python, but networking and packets you just don’t get.”

Reed spoke with John Furrier (pictured, far right), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and Steve Mullaney (pictured, far left), president and chief executive officer of Aviatrix, during the Altitude 2020 event in Santa Clara, California. Reed was joined by Toby Foss (pictured, third from right), director of cloud network operations at Informatica LLC, and Stacy Lanier (second from right), senior manager of DevOps and network services at Teradata Corp. They discussed the importance of understanding the different cloud provider platforms and how certification can help take pressure off network administrators. (* Disclosure below.)

Understanding cloud differences

One of the key drivers behind the ACE program is that as more enterprises adopt multicloud models, networking expertise becomes dependent on understanding the subtle distinctions between cloud providers.

“It doesn’t need to be vendor specific for network generality or basic networking knowledge,” Foss explained. “That’s true in multicloud as well. You can’t learn how cloud networking works without understanding how AWS and Azure and GCP are all slightly the same and slightly different.”

The life of network specialists in the cloud era can occasionally be one of blame and distrust when systems don’t perform as well as expected. Certification programs, such as the one offered by Aviatrix, are designed to make a day in the life of a network administrator a bit more drama-free.

“It’s about no issues and no escalation,” Lanier said. “If my day is like that, I’m happy.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Altitude event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner and co-producer for Altitude 2020. Neither Aviatrix Systems Inc. nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE