4670B343 - PROG 280 Introduction to Cloud Computing

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This course focuses on cloud computing. As the number of devices the average user owns increases, we need to find a neutral place to store our information that can be accessed from multiple locations. That place is the cloud.

The cloud consists of hardware and software resources accessed over the Internet. These scalable resources are provided as metered services such as applications, development platforms, storage, or an entire OS.

Cloud computing is one of the fastest growing, and most important, digital technologies. In the third quarter of 2013, there were revenues of $2.5 billion Links to an external site. in the cloud computing market. End users rely on the cloud to store and create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Developers use the cloud to host databases, web servers, web based applications, blogs, and even IDE’s. Developers who work in the cloud can rent anything from an individual service to an entire OS.

Prog 280 is designed to help you become familiar with cloud computing and its rapidly growing job market. It focuses on familiar feeling cloud tools like Google Drive, WordPress and Windows SkyDrive, and on tools that will feel quite strange to some students, such as MediaWiki, Freebase, and Hadoop. You will learn to use cloud hosted virtual machines running both the Microsoft and Linux operating systems, and learn how to create applications that can make your hosted data available on most hardware platforms. Throughout this process, the best students will keep an open mind as they explore new and unexpected technologies, and as they discover familiar technologies hosted in the cloud. Our goal is to learn to embrace all these tools, gain mastery over them, and have fun exploring them.

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