This unit introduces cloud computing as the provision of computing resources. Students are exposed to modern systems architectures and software development kits that, together, provide cloud computing frameworks. Students will learn about different aspects of the design, development, provisioning and management of cloud-based applications.
Students will gain a sound understanding of cloud-based computing and the opportunities that it provides for a diverse range of computing applications. Special attention will be made to security of cloud based applications and the different strategies that are available in these deployments.
An overarching goal of the unit is to provide students with an opportunity to undertake problem identification, analysis and solution and to apply these skills to the field of Cloud Computing.
The course is based on the cloud services of Amazon Web Services and a range of open source and other products. It is not possible in a course such as this to cover all of the products that these cloud services provide. The theme has been to concentrate on the most common use cases of [a] using AWS to deploy web applications utilising data sources such as databases and [b] data analytics and machine learning.
Students are able to
- Understand cloud services, there motivation, design and implementation
- Understand the basics of virtualisation of hardware, networks and security
- Understand application architectures and how they meet specific requirements and needs
- Understand how to achieve scalability and security in a cloud-based architecture
- Use DevOps to deploy and manage the creation and updating of software environments
- Use cloud services to carry out specific use cases such as data analytics, machine learning and other artificial intelligence tasks
- Write code in Python using a variety of SDKs to achieve the above where appropriate
The course consists of 12 weeks of lectures and 9 weeks of practical lab classes. Assessments are listed below.
- 20% Labs
- 30% MidSem Exam
- 50% Final Exam