CAB432 Cloud Computing

Unit Outline: Semester 2 2021, Gardens Point, Internal

Overview

Cloud Computing is among the most important developments in the IT industry in recent years, and one which has received enormous attention. Cloud is a natural progression from earlier trends in service and infrastructure outsourcing and virtualisation, but is distinguished by its elasticity and scale: service and infrastructure provisioning may change rapidly in response to variations in demand, allowing clients to cater for unexpected spikes in load without tying up capital in expensive and potentially underutilised assets.

Cloud services and technologies are becoming increasingly diverse and sophisticated, moving rapidly from the initial, 'bare metal' offerings of a few years ago, and providing a rich set of options and APIs. This unit provides a technically oriented introduction to Cloud Computing, giving you experience in developing modern cloud applications and deploying them to the public clouds of the major vendors.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:

1. Understand the business models and the elastic nature of Cloud technologies and their application in practice in both a technical and commercial context. (GC1)
2. Be able to distinguish between the range of XaaS services offered in a cloud context, understand their advantages and limitations, and make appropriate choices in application design and implementation. (GC1, GC2)
3. Be able to utilise publicly available data and service APIs in the creation of web applications using industry standard languages and servers and to demonstrate their successful deployment using a software container. (GC1, GC2, GC3, GC4, GC6)
4. Be able to develop applications using industry standard languages and APIs and run them successfully on a public cloud infrastructure, managing the deployment and elastic provisioning for this application. (GC1-GC5)
5. Understand the issues presented by very large scale data stores - notably those relating to security and privacy - and be familiar with and able to apply a range of standard approaches for processing this data,. (GC1-GC3, GC6)
6. Be familiar with a range of public and private cloud infrastructure and service offerings and understand the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches. (GC1, GC2, GC4)

Content

Learning Approaches

This unit will use lectures and practical sessions to focus on the context and principles of cloud computing. Technologies will as far as possible be introduced in a practical context, and you will be given every opportunity to undertake practical exercises using the APIs and cloud infrastructure.

Feedback on Learning and Assessment

You can obtain feedback on your progress throughout the unit through the following mechanisms:

• Ask the teaching staff for advice and assistance during lectures and practical sessions.
• Your major assignments will be returned to you before the end of semester with comments on your progress.
• Private consultation with teaching staff.

Assessment

Overview

All assessment contributes to your grade.

Unit Grading Scheme

7- point scale

Assessment Tasks

Assessment: Project (applied)

You will implement a web application mashup which utilises public data and service APIs, and deploy it to the cloud using a software container. You will be required to present and demonstrate your application, and to write a professional report describing your work. 

Assessment: Practical Exercises (applied)

You will undertake a number of assessable practical exercises demonstrating key aspects of the provision of cloud services. These may include services such as autoscaling and load balancing of cloud instances, the use of storage services and application caching, and the use of collections of software containers. These will be assessed in class to the satisfaction of the tutor on a pass/fail basis, and you will be given an opportunity to revise work which is not of an appropriate standard.

Assessment: Project (applied)

Working with a partner, you will design and implement a stateless cloud application which employs modern cloud services and scales automatically in response to variations in computational load. It is mandatory that your application be deployed to a public cloud infrastructure. You will be required to present and demonstrate your application, and to write a professional report describing your work. 

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is a commitment to undertaking academic work and assessment in a manner that is ethical, fair, honest, respectful and accountable.

The Academic Integrity Policy sets out the range of conduct that can be a failure to maintain the standards of academic integrity. This includes, cheating in exams, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion and contract cheating. It also includes providing fraudulent or altered documentation in support of an academic concession application, for example an assignment extension or a deferred exam.

You are encouraged to make use of QUT’s learning support services, resources and tools to assure the academic integrity of your assessment. This includes the use of text matching software that may be available to assist with self-assessing your academic integrity as part of the assessment submission process.

Breaching QUT’s Academic Integrity Policy or engaging in conduct that may defeat or compromise the purpose of assessment can lead to a finding of student misconduct (Code of Conduct – Student) and result in the imposition of penalties under the Management of Student Misconduct Policy, ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.

Resources

Risk Assessment Statement

There are no unusual health or safety risks associated with this unit. Some aspects of the unit may need to be modified in the event of changes to the available cloud offerings.