Cloud Virtualization, Containers and APIs (edX)

• Get hands-on experience with cloud computing building blocks like virtual machines and containers
• Learn to develop microservices using technologies like Flask and Kubernetes.
• Discover best practices for effective cloud operations, including monitoring, alerting, load testing, and continuous improvement.
• Apply DevOps principles to build and deploy cloud-native applications.
• Gain practical skills for designing and implementing scalable, reliable cloud solutions.

This course is part of the Introduction to Cloud Computing Professional Certificate.

What you'll learn

• Evaluate best practices for implementing elastic cloud computing resources
• Develop APIs utilizing software engineering best practices
• Develop docker format containers for data engineering and software workflows
• Plan and execute successful Kubernetes workflows
• Develop microservices applying DevOps best practices
• Evaluate infrastructure configurations for optimizing cloud costs
• Implement effective monitoring, alerting, load testing, and Kaizen methodology

Syllabus

Here is the course structure formatted with bullets for each module:

1\. Getting Started with Cloud Building Blocks (Module 1 - 1 hour)
\- Videos (5 videos, total 10 minutes)
\- Instructor Introduction (1 minute, preview)
\- Course Introduction (2 minutes)
\- Course Prerequisites (2 minutes)
\- Lab Onboarding (1 minute)
\- Course 2 Project Overview (2 minutes)
\- Readings (4 readings, total 60 minutes)
\- Getting Started and Course Gotchas (10 minutes)
\- Course Structure and Discussion Etiquette (10 minutes)
\- Create a free account with AWS, Azure and GCP (30 minutes)
\- Specialization Project Roadmap: Course 2 (10 minutes)
\- Discussion Prompt (1 prompt, total 10 minutes)
\- Introductions (10 minutes)

2\. Virtualization and Containers (Module 2 - 10 hours)
\- Videos (26 videos, total 115 minutes)
\- Introduction to Virtual Machines (2 minutes, preview)
\- Containers vs. Virtual Machines (2 minutes)
\- ...
\- Readings (16 readings, total 190 minutes)
\- Key Terms (10 minutes)
\- Red Hat on Containers vs VMs (10 minutes)
\- ...
\- Quizzes (4 quizzes, total 120 minutes)
\- Week 2 Quiz (30 minutes)
\- Quiz-Virtual Machines (30 minutes)
\- ...
\- Discussion Prompts (4 prompts, total 40 minutes)
\- AWS vCPU (10 minutes)
\- Advantages of Spot Instances (10 minutes)
\- ...
\- Ungraded Labs (3 labs, total 180 minutes)
\- Bash Aliases (60 minutes)
\- Lint Dockerfile (60 minutes)
\- FastAPI Calculator Microservice (60 minutes)

3\. Microservices (Module 3 - 9 hours)
\- Videos (22 videos, total 88 minutes)
\- Introduction to Microservices (1 minute, preview)
\- What is a Microservice? (2 minutes)
\- ...
\- Readings (16 readings, total 160 minutes)
\- Key Terms (10 minutes)
\- How To Transform (10 minutes)
\- ...
\- Quizzes (4 quizzes, total 120 minutes)
\- Week 3 Quiz (30 minutes)
\- Quiz-What is a Microservice? (30 minutes)
\- ...
\- Discussion Prompts (3 prompts, total 30 minutes)
\- Microservices as a DevOps Best Practice (10 minutes)
\- ...
\- Ungraded Labs (3 labs, total 180 minutes)
\- Processing JSON (60 minutes)
\- Flask Change Microservice (60 minutes)
\- Marco Polo Command-line tool (60 minutes)

4\. Operations (Module 4 - 9 hours)
\- Videos (13 videos, total 42 minutes)
\- Introduction to Monitoring and Alerts (1 minute, preview)
\- Effective Monitoring and Alerts (2 minutes)
\- ...
\- Readings (13 readings, total 130 minutes)
\- Key Terms (10 minutes)
\- Scaling and Monitoring (10 minutes)
\- ...
\- Quizzes (4 quizzes, total 120 minutes)
\- Week 4 Quiz (30 minutes)
\- Quiz-Monitoring and Alerts (30 minutes)
\- ...
\- Discussion Prompts (3 prompts, total 30 minutes)
\- Actionable Alerts (10 minutes)
\- Load Testing (10 minutes)
\- The Five Whys (10 minutes)
\- Ungraded Labs (4 labs, total 240 minutes)
\- Load Test a Flask Microservice (60 minutes)
\- VS Code Sandbox (60 minutes)
\- Jupyter Sandbox (60 minutes)
\- Linux Desktop Sandbox (60 minutes)