Cloud Computing Foundations

Overview

Welcome to the first course in the Building Cloud Computing Solutions at Scale Specialization! In this course, you will learn how to build foundational Cloud computing infrastructure, including websites involving serverless technology and virtual machines. You will also learn how to apply Agile software development techniques to projects which will be useful in building portfolio projects and global-scale Cloud infrastructures. This course is ideal for beginners as well as intermediate students interested in applying Cloud computing to data science, machine learning and data engineering. Students should have beginner level Linux and intermediate level Python skills. For your project in this course, you will build a statically hosted website using the Hugo framework, AWS Code Pipelines, AWS S3 and GitHub.

Syllabus

Getting Started with Cloud Computing Foundations

This week, you will learn how to access the free tiers of three Cloud environments. You will then have an opportunity to review the details of the final project in this course: Building a Hugo Static Website that is Continuously Deployed using AWS Code Build and AWS S3 Static Hosting. Each week, you will learn and build upon key Cloud development skills to prepare you for this final course project.

Developing Effective Technical Communication

Getting started with a good plan is the most challenging part of building software. Before we dive into the technical aspects of Cloud development, let's spend some time discussing strategies for effective technical communication. This week, you will learn strategies for expressing thoughts effectively in a technical forum in a digitally native way, constructing effective technical discussions that enhance discussions and provide reusable documentation and explaining successful techniques for teamwork in technical projects. You will apply this by creating a project plan for the Final Course Project. This project plan includes a spreadsheet, a GitHub project and a Trello board.

Exploring Cloud Onboarding

This week, you will learn how to build continuous delivery pipelines and apply the essential practices of continuous integration in Cloud onboarding. These pipelines use both Cloud-native build servers as well as the popular 3rd party SaaS build server: GitHub Actions. Additionally you build Continuous Delivery Pipelines in multiple Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, and GCP).

Evaluating the Cloud Service Model

This week, you will learn about the different types of Cloud service models. These models include: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Serverless. You will apply this knowledge by building multiple types of websites: Static, serverless, virtualized and PaaS.

Applying DevOps Principles

This week, you will learn DevOps and how to apply the principles of DevOps to projects you work on. Then, you will examine the shared practices of software development and IT operations using DevOps. Finally, you will utilize Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to manage Cloud Infrastructure and develop continuous delivery pipelines.