Cloud Systems & Infrastructure - Part 1

You will become familiar with the course, your classmates, and our learning environment. The orientation will also help you obtain the technical skills required for the course.

This module introduces the concept of cloud computing and its economic foundations. It covers fundamental concepts including software defined architectures and cloud services, and introduces infrastructure as a service (IaaS) as a low-level cloud computing offering.

This module covers virtualization and containers in depth, including lectures on Docker, JVM, and Kubernetes. It compares infrastructure as a service offerings from major providers: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, and introduces serverless architecture.

This module introduces Metal as a Service (MAAS) for provisioning real hardware in the cloud, Platform as a Service (PaaS) for running user code, and Web Middleware as the glue technology that empowers cloud computing. It covers web services, RPC semantics and implementation, HTTP/SOAP/REST protocols, JSON, load balancing, protocol buffers, Thrift, and Mobile Backend as a Service.

This module focuses on data storage in the cloud, introducing big data and cloud file systems such as HDFS and Ceph, cloud object stores such as OpenStack Swift and Amazon S3, virtualized block storage devices such as Amazon EBS, and archival storage options like Amazon Glacier. It concludes with the Dropbox cloud API for integrating cloud storage in applications.

This module provides a conclusion to the course, allowing students to find out where to go next after completing the course and to share thoughts on their course experience.