(October 2009) Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing has been a prominent and recurring topic in technology news in recent years. Many of the largest Internet and computing companies are aggressively positioning themselves to take advantage of this exciting technology. The "Cloud" is a metaphor for the Internet. Cloud Computing refers to the paradigm in which computer processing tasks are decoupled from physical hardware, instead tapping in to the cumulative power of a virtually unlimited number of machines. Most likely, you have heard this promise before, but recent advances have begun to make the cost-value proposition irresistible.

What's so attractive about Cloud Computing? For users, it is the lure of uncompromised “computing anywhere”. For IT professionals, cloud computing makes scalability and redundancy truly affordable. For software developers, the programming environment and the OS must be modified for the cloud software to achieve its full potential. For hardware designers, virtualization of IO, storage and server functions are now part of the architectural design. For researchers, there is still plenty of territory to be conquered.

At UCSC Extension, we offer an overview of the core concepts in the Cloud Computing course. As the instructor points out, the cloud technology is still evolving. However, we can provide a summary of the technology in its most recent incarnation. We offer Ruby on Rails and Java courses, the two popular open source languages in the cloud. As for the infrastructure that builds the foundation for the cloud, we offer courses on Server Virtualization and Storage Networking. We are also preparing to introduce a new architecture course on Software as a Service. Stay tuned!