Everything you've met so far — version control, pipelines, containers, infrastructure as code, deploys, monitoring — has to run on real computers somewhere. For most teams today, that somewhere is the cloud. This short chapter is about why DevOps and the cloud fit together so neatly, without trying to teach the cloud itself.
3 topics
DevOps is a way of working; the cloud is a place to work. The two grew up at the same time, and not by chance. DevOps wants to create, change, and throw away servers quickly and automatically — and the cloud, where you rent computers from a provider on demand instead of buying and keeping them, is the first place that became possible. Each one made the other practical.
Three short topics draw the connection. First, why DevOps and the cloud pair so naturally — what each side wanted from the other. Then how infrastructure as code reaches its full power in the cloud, where a file can summon whole environments and a command can make them vanish. And finally managed services — renting a ready-made capability, like a database, that the provider runs for you. This is a relationship chapter; the cloud itself is a course of its own.
Two halves that fit: the how and the where
DevOps — the how
Wants infrastructure it can create, change, and tear down fast, automatically, and from code. That's the whole toolchain you've just learned.
The cloud — the where
Rents computers on demand from a provider's data center, requested from code and billed by use. It supplies exactly what DevOps asks for.