Subject Overview

Cloud Computing Fundamentals examines the principles, architectures, services, technologies, operations, security, economics and governance of cloud computing. It combines foundational theory with practical solution design, organizational decision-making, digital transformation and emerging industry developments.

Learning Goal

Students will be able to explain cloud concepts and architectures; compare service, deployment and pricing models; design secure, reliable and cost-effective cloud solutions; apply cloud-native, operational and governance practices; evaluate migration and vendor decisions; and assess developments in AI, edge computing, sustainability and cloud careers.

Syllabus

1. Foundations and Evolution of Cloud Computing

Learning Objective: Define cloud computing and its terminology, historical development, essential characteristics, benefits, limitations and relationship to distributed, utility, grid and on-demand computing.

Category: foundation

2. Cloud Architecture and Enabling Technologies

Learning Objective: Explain data centers, regions, availability zones, resource pooling, multitenancy, abstraction, virtualization, hypervisors, containers, APIs and distributed-system principles that enable cloud platforms.

Category: foundation

3. Service, Deployment and Responsibility Models

Learning Objective: Compare IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, FaaS and managed services; evaluate public, private, hybrid, community and multi-cloud models; and apply shared-responsibility concepts and service-level agreements.

Category: core

4. Cloud Infrastructure Services

Learning Objective: Design basic solutions using virtual machines, images, autoscaling, block, file and object storage, virtual networks, addressing, routing, load balancing, DNS, content delivery and connectivity services.

Category: core

5. Cloud Application and Cloud-Native Architecture

Learning Objective: Apply scalability, elasticity, statelessness, loose coupling, caching, messaging, event-driven design, microservices, containers, orchestration and serverless computing to cloud application design.

Category: core

6. Provisioning, DevOps and Cloud Operations

Learning Objective: Use management consoles, command-line tools, SDKs and infrastructure as code; explain CI/CD, configuration management, observability, logging, metrics, tracing, incident response and operational automation.

Category: application

7. Cloud Security, Identity and Privacy

Learning Objective: Assess threats and controls involving IAM, least privilege, federation, zero trust, encryption, key and secrets management, network security, vulnerability management, secure configuration, privacy and security monitoring.

Category: core

8. Reliability, Performance and Business Continuity

Learning Objective: Analyze availability, fault tolerance, redundancy, scalability, performance and capacity; design backup and disaster-recovery approaches using RTO, RPO, failure-domain and resilience principles.

Category: application

9. Cloud Data, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence

Learning Objective: Compare relational, NoSQL, warehouse, lake and streaming services; design basic cloud data pipelines; and evaluate managed analytics, machine learning and generative AI services, including data quality, model risk and responsible AI.

Category: application

10. Cloud Economics, FinOps and Vendor Decisions

Learning Objective: Interpret metering, subscriptions, pay-as-you-go and commitment pricing; estimate total cost of ownership and return on investment; optimize utilization; manage budgets and chargeback; and evaluate providers, contracts, lock-in and exit strategies.

Category: strategic

11. Governance, Compliance, Ethics and Sustainability

Learning Objective: Develop policies for resource ownership, tagging, access, data residency, auditability and risk; relate cloud use to standards and regulations; and assess ethical sourcing, accessibility, environmental impact and sustainable computing.

Category: strategic

12. Cloud Migration and Digital Transformation

Learning Objective: Assess cloud readiness, application portfolios and dependencies; apply migration strategies such as rehost, replatform, refactor, repurchase, retain and retire; and plan adoption, operating-model change, skills development and organizational transformation.

Category: strategic

13. Hybrid, Multi-Cloud and Edge Computing

Learning Objective: Evaluate architectures integrating on-premises, multiple providers, edge devices and IoT; address interoperability, portability, connectivity, data consistency, management complexity and appropriate workload placement.

Category: contemporary

14. Solution Design, Industry Practice and Future Directions

Learning Objective: Synthesize requirements into a secure, resilient, compliant and cost-aware cloud architecture; communicate trade-offs through diagrams and proposals; and examine platform engineering, sovereign cloud, confidential computing, AI infrastructure, quantum cloud and evolving professional skills.

Category: contemporary