CloudU: Grow Your Cloud Knowledge
Rackspace Cloud University, known as CloudU™, is a vendor-neutral, cloud education curriculum designed by industry analyst and all-around good guy, Ben Kepes. Even after you've earned the CloudU Certificate, come back often for more videos, whitepapers, podcasts and webinars about the most interesting topics in the Cloud. Not sure if CloudU is for you? Find out more about our CloudU vision.
Updates
Programming & the Cloud, Preparing the Developer for Tomorrow
The advent of Cloud Computing has removed infrastructure as a barrier to rapid and massive scaling of applications. Whereas in the past the need for physical hardware created a drag upon the entire scaling process, the ease of use and accessibility of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) has made it possible for a developer to create an application one day and have it utilized by hundreds of thousands of users the next.
This paradigm shift in terms of scale, geographic spread and velocity has changed the development process markedly – no longer do developers have the luxury of creating an application and scaling that application in a controlled & generally sedate manner. Instead the velocity of today means that they need to think about scale and speed from the outset.
At the same time, modern web applications are architected in an entirely different manner with traffic to and from the application via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) amounting for a significant proportion of total traffic. This change in the ways data is being created, stored and consumed by an application has also changed the demands on developers.
Disaster Recovery -- Continuity in an Uncertain World
Disasters are an inevitable certainty for any organization -- but while inevitable, disasters are also generally unpredictable. The best strategy then in the face of inevitable but uncertain negative events is to have a holistic plan that sets out the process by which an organization can return to normal operations after a disaster.
This paper will define some core concepts around disaster recovery, contrast it with the related but distinct field of High Availability, and give some key guidelines as to how an organization can plan, react and recover from a disaster.
New CloudU video
Hey all, Ben again. We've been busy at CloudU making some more videos to help people understand the cloud. The latest video looks at the Cloud Computing Stack, diving into Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service and Infrastructure-as-a-Service. Check it out and let us know what you think. Cheers.
Most Popular Lessons
Understanding the Cloud Computing Stack
In this Lesson, you will learn about the characteristics of three different types of Cloud Computing, commonly referred to as:
-Software as a Service (SaaS)
-Platform as a Service (PaaS)
-Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Guidance will be provided on situations where particular flavors of Cloud Computing may or may not be the best option for an organization.
Read LessonRevolution Not Evolution
In this lesson, you will learn how Cloud Computing is a revolution that will define IT in the future. Special focus will be given to the following elements of Cloud Computing:
Virtualization – The ability to increase computing efficiency
Democratization of Computing – Bringing enterprise scale infrastructure to small and medium businesses
Scalability and Fast Provisioning – Bringing web scale IT at a rapid pace
Commoditization of Infrastructure – Enabling IT to focus on the strategic aspects of its role
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