Part time cloud computing course

zhangj5

Looking for a part time cloud computing course at the moment, prefer location is the city center or the northside and more practice rather than theory, any recommendations? Thanks.

amen

Looking for a part time cloud computing course at the momen

why ? everything you need to know is on the web.

you can create an account with Amazons S3, MS Azure for very little (a few cents) and try out the cloud yourself.

p

What would a course in cloud computing teach exactly?

syklops

amen wrote: »

why ? everything you need to know is on the web.

you can create an account with Amazons S3, MS Azure for very little (a few cents) and try out the cloud yourself.

You can have an OpenShift(Red Hats offering) account for free. Sign up here: https://openshift.redhat.com/app/

As someone else said, what would a cloud course teach? Cloud is so new that its not even properly defined yet. Any courses you do get will be all theory(read fluff) anyway.

Go get a cloud account somewhere, learn a couple of languages, e.g. ruby/python/java, which you can use to do some dev work, and in 6 months entitle yourself a "Part-time Cloud Development Researcher". It will look great on the CV, plus you will learn more than any fluffy Cloud course.

Nulty

There's a PG Dip, Certificate and an M.Sc in National College of Ireland in Cloud Computing.

If you're unemployed for 3+ months and qualify on other such levels its free, yes - FREE.

This Post-Graduate Diploma in Cloud Computing is centered on giving you the research skills, problem solving skills and technical expertise to become an established expert in the increasingly vital area of cloud computing. Cloud Computing sales by Irish firms could reach €9.5bn per annum by 2014, according to Goodbody economic consultants in a report entitled “Irelands Competitiveness & Jobs Opportunity: Cloud Computing” released in January 2011.

This innovative postgraduate programme at level 9 on the NFQ will allow you to research, design and develop strategies to cater for the emerging market in Cloud Computing. Cloud Computing combines virtualization, commodity-based computing, automation, and always-on computing. The result is fast, flexible computing platforms that can tackle business challenges that were previously difficult to manage. On the other hand, clouds pose new risks.

CIOs have to cope with IT sprawl, rogue applications, compliance issues, and unpredictable cost models. This Postgraduate Diploma in Cloud Computing addresses these issues bringing together knowledge and experiences from vendors, analysts, and end users. The technologies in the Post-Graduate Diploma in Cloud Computing are focused on providing graduates with the ability to work in any area of Cloud Computing; from migrating companies to the Cloud, creating new Cloud based companies / services or working within multi-national organisations

.The Post-Graduate Diploma in Cloud Computing will particularly appeal to graduates with level 8 degrees in related disciplines (including Science, Engineering, Computing…etc.) who wish to place themselves at the forefront of knowledge in cloud computing and those with relevant experience seeking a formal qualification in the area.

While Cloud is considered by some as a technology evolution, the reality is that it is much more than that. The fundamental shift that it represents means that business, public sector and Government now have the opportunity to change how they run their organisations, how services are delivered, how they scale an operation - while increasing efficiencies and reducing costs. As an enabler and a facilitator of growth the Cloud is an unrivalled opportunity. This programme is a postgraduate diploma sharing modules with the Certificate in Cloud Computing also offered under this initiative.

The Modules are:
-Deployment,
-Web application Frameworks,
-Cloud Computing,
-Advanced Client Side Scripting,
-Advanced Rich Internet Applications,
-Technological Entrepreneurship,
-Enterprise Game,
-Enterprise Frameworks.

http://www.bluebrick.ie/Springboard/Certificate-in-Cloud-Computing/Science-Mathematics-and-Computing/Computing/Computer-Science/ViewItem.aspx?ItemTypeID=2&ItemID=794

The M.Sc will cost around 9k I think. I was considering doing it but like everyone else has said, what exactly will they teach you? You could learn it all by yourself but a free Post Grad Diploma on your CV and a year in which to hone your own skills is a decent opportunity.

DublinWriter

zhangj5 wrote: »

Looking for a part time cloud computing course at the moment, prefer location is the city center or the northside and more practice rather than theory, any recommendations? Thanks.

Tom Peters once said that the I.T. industry has more in common with the fashion industry than any other.

In the 80's it was all about decentralisation, in the 90's it was client-server, in the naughties it was web-based and in this climate it's all about cloud and Agile.

If I were you I'd get a decent grounding in IT/IS basics first.

syklops

DublinWriter wrote: »

If I were you I'd get a decent grounding in IT/IS basics first.

Absolutely. Learn/know the fundamentals and whatever new technology comes a long you can build on your existing skills. You will save yourself years and a small fortune doing that, then doing fluffy courses.

From the piece about the PG course:

This Post-Graduate Diploma in Cloud Computing is centered on giving you the research skills, problem solving skills and technical expertise

Research skills? Unless they are cloud specific research skills, which I doubt, most people who do a PG should already have swathes of research skills. In fact most people who complete high school should have decent research skills. Again, unless they are cloud-specific problem solving skills, most people eligible for that course should already be packing decent levels of problem solving skills.

I would be interested in finding more details on the technical aspects of the course. I hope they dont just give you a Windows Azure account and a copy of Visual Studio.

stevenmu

OP, what are you expecting from the course, and what are you expecting to get from it that you wouldn't get from general computing/computer science/software engineering?

John_Mc

Using a development environment on the Amazon cloud here at work and I genuinely can't see any difference - except that you've to shut down the instance you're working on when it's not being used (to save money!).

As others have said - don't bother. Get yourself an account on a cloud provider and start playing around with it.

amen

CIOs have to cope with IT sprawl, rogue applications, compliance issues, and unpredictable cost models.

Ironic really as the cloud now means you have business critical applications sitting off site in the cloud(it sprawl, compliance and upredictable cost) and dependent on the cloud provider for connectivity and update time

from migrating companies to the Cloud, creating new Cloud based companies / services

Well you need some programmers for creating the new cloud programs so you can migrate your companies to the cloud

working within multi-national organisations.

wow you need a Post Grad diploma to be able to to do this

Naikon

It's a shame the "IT" industry is basically unregulated for the most part.

Freddio

You would need 1 lecture in college to be taught the fundamentals of cloud computing, after that its IT and development. SQL Azure is effectively SQL Server 2008 r2. Azure hosting is windows for anything that can be served up through http/https, and as far as Im aware Amazon is servers with the disk image you upload. I hear digiweb have a version of cloud serving but I havent heard anything else about it.

Mark my words: it will be the next dot com crash if people are going to take Enda Kenny's Cloud Computing prophesy as the salvation for Ireland

Naikon

"Cloud Computing" is nonsense. Do Computer Science, not a cloud computing course.

Evil Phil

As Naikon says, do computer science. Everybody is doing 'cloud' stuff now, see band wagon, jump on band wagon. Not that the cloud isn't important. The same skills apply to the cloud or more traditional platforms, when you're working you'll be constantly maintaining your skill-set anyway, I don't see cloud computing as something that requires a specialist diploma in.

zhangj5

Thanks, guys. I have already got a B.S Computer Science and based on my experimence that programming is not just about reading some tuturials on line or writing some toy projects. More importantly, an expert's help can save you huge amounts of time and be sure that you are going to the correct direction.

kippy

Yeah, a bit of a skeptic here on the whole "cloud" computing courses. A lot of educational institutions are starting to use the word in their course material - I doubt the guys teaching in it have stepped outside the educational institution in question in years - so I'd be skeptical as to where they got their "expertise". Lots of the multinationals are getting more grants out of the government as well purely based on this buzz word - not that theres a major problem with this, but I do question the requirements for a lot of these roles.
To understand cloud computing have a look into Vmware, Hyper V to give you an idea of the back end of it of perhaps how the "cloud" is implemented and maybe to give you an idea of of the private and public implementations.
I havent a clue about the programming side but suspect that the traditional languages can all utilise the "cloud".
As mentioned a traditional computer systems course/computer engineering course are still the right areas to be looking at. Keep your options open.


I am an IT Support/Admin/Engineer with little exposure to programming. If as an organisation, we begin to use some area of public cloud (we use a quasi private cloud for certain areas of the business at the moment) there wont be too much of an impact on what I actually do, but I'll be looking after it. Dont think I'll need a masters as the fundamentals of the role as still the same......

stevenmu

zhangj5 wrote: »

Thanks, guys. I have already got a B.S Computer Science and based on my experimence that programming is not just about reading some tuturials on line or writing some toy projects. More importantly, an expert's help can save you huge amounts of time and be sure that you are going to the correct direction.

I agree with quite a bit of this, reading a quick tutorial and doing a few sample apps will get you something up and running in the cloud, but probably won't give you a robust solution following best practices.

I don't think a college course would be the correct way to rectify this though. I agree with Kippy in wondering where the people who would be given the course have gained their knowledge and more importantly their experience.

Most importantly there isn't a single "The Cloud". For e.g. building a simple static 1 page website and hosting it on Blacknight or Hosting365 is "cloud computing". Amazon (afaik) give you a kind of virtual infrastructure and you manage adding virtual machines and disks etc, Microsoft look after the lower level details and give you APIs to work with in your software. Or for standard applications there's things like Office365 or Google Apps.

I suspect you won't find a course that covers everything and does it well. From Comp Sci you should have already covered things like high performance, high availability, distributed systems and have the principles of those. IMO you then just need to add the specifics of the systems you are going to use and look for industray courses and certs based on those. I'm pretty sure MS do courses and certs in Azure, and I'm sure other providers have similar programs.

Shtanto

Which pays more: Casual workers benefit or the BTEA?

I'm looking at a 2 week course on Bluebrick in DIT, teaching photoshop. I'm already pretty well overqualified & under-experienced, so another degree would worsen the gap. That's why I'm not to inclined to go for anything fancier. Shame it's only 1 course per year all the same.

Edit: Cloud computing eh? Try a course in VMware. I did one with a company called SureSkills. Great fun too!

Superman100

Nulty wrote: »

There's a PG Dip, Certificate and an M.Sc in National College of Ireland in Cloud Computing.

If you're unemployed for 3+ months and qualify on other such levels its free, yes - FREE.

This Post-Graduate Diploma in Cloud Computing is centered on giving you the research skills, problem solving skills and technical expertise to become an established expert in the increasingly vital area of cloud computing. Cloud Computing sales by Irish firms could reach €9.5bn per annum by 2014, according to Goodbody economic consultants in a report entitled “Irelands Competitiveness & Jobs Opportunity: Cloud Computing” released in January 2011.

This innovative postgraduate programme at level 9 on the NFQ will allow you to research, design and develop strategies to cater for the emerging market in Cloud Computing. Cloud Computing combines virtualization, commodity-based computing, automation, and always-on computing. The result is fast, flexible computing platforms that can tackle business challenges that were previously difficult to manage. On the other hand, clouds pose new risks.

CIOs have to cope with IT sprawl, rogue applications, compliance issues, and unpredictable cost models. This Postgraduate Diploma in Cloud Computing addresses these issues bringing together knowledge and experiences from vendors, analysts, and end users. The technologies in the Post-Graduate Diploma in Cloud Computing are focused on providing graduates with the ability to work in any area of Cloud Computing; from migrating companies to the Cloud, creating new Cloud based companies / services or working within multi-national organisations

.The Post-Graduate Diploma in Cloud Computing will particularly appeal to graduates with level 8 degrees in related disciplines (including Science, Engineering, Computing…etc.) who wish to place themselves at the forefront of knowledge in cloud computing and those with relevant experience seeking a formal qualification in the area.

While Cloud is considered by some as a technology evolution, the reality is that it is much more than that. The fundamental shift that it represents means that business, public sector and Government now have the opportunity to change how they run their organisations, how services are delivered, how they scale an operation - while increasing efficiencies and reducing costs. As an enabler and a facilitator of growth the Cloud is an unrivalled opportunity. This programme is a postgraduate diploma sharing modules with the Certificate in Cloud Computing also offered under this initiative.

The Modules are:
-Deployment,
-Web application Frameworks,
-Cloud Computing,
-Advanced Client Side Scripting,
-Advanced Rich Internet Applications,
-Technological Entrepreneurship,
-Enterprise Game,
-Enterprise Frameworks.

http://www.bluebrick.ie/Springboard/Certificate-in-Cloud-Computing/Science-Mathematics-and-Computing/Computing/Computer-Science/ViewItem.aspx?ItemTypeID=2&ItemID=794

The M.Sc will cost around 9k I think. I was considering doing it but like everyone else has said, what exactly will they teach you? You could learn it all by yourself but a free Post Grad Diploma on your CV and a year in which to hone your own skills is a decent opportunity.[/Quote


Avoid the NCI part tine cloud computing course like the plague! A friend of mine started this course. It was run so badly almost half the class had left by the end of first semester. Heard class complaints lodged with HETAC and the HEA. Ask current students, they will tell you it's an absolute disaster.

Feathers

Cloud Foundry is another one that you can run locally on your own machine & tinker with.

It depends on what type of work you want to go into though. You mention that you've a BSc in Computer Science — does that not qualify you for most jobs as a SysAdmin/Programmer?

Naikon wrote: »

It's a shame the "IT" industry is basically unregulated for the most part.

I'd disagree — think it's great to see job ads asking for Github handles, etc. Also means that people can get partially judged on some work they've done rather than CV/interview alone, & encourages people to keep up to date.

Cork24

CIT have a hons degree in cloud computing and a masters

They have teamed up with EMC and VMware for this module.

I can tell you no other college will have the course that they have running and it's ran so well.

EMC have given their Nas and San cloud storage course for the students

kippy

Cork24 wrote: »

CIT have a hons degree in cloud computing and a masters

They have teamed up with EMC and VMware for this module.

I can tell you no other college will have the course that they have running and it's ran so well.

EMC have given their Nas and San cloud storage course for the students

Thats as close to cloud computing in the "real" world, that you can get in any college.

clubcrown

Avoid the NCI part tine cloud computing course like the plague! A friend of mine started this course. It was run so badly almost half the class had left by the end of first semester. Heard class complaints lodged with HETAC and the HEA. Ask current students, they will tell you it's an absolute disaster.

Not strictly true - it has settled down quite a bit in the second semester and has improved a lot. Second semester much much better then the first.

There was an issue with one of the Christmas exams which was very badly handled and lead to the HETAC complaints etc. However most of the people who left were not really cut out for the course in the first place, or couldn't handle the workload, which is a common enough problem.

The course title is misleading. Its more akin to the MSC in web tech (rails, HTML5, Javascript, usability) with some cloud theory modules on top. Overall I'm finding it fairly good. The cloud stuff has actually been alright, but its more to do with the business side of things. You're not going to learn how to use VMware in this course for example.

The course title is a just marketing to get government funding I expect ;-)

Mr. Loverman

Scratching my head here. Surely if you have IT skills (such as a computer science qualification) you can understand cloud computing in about 10 seconds. It's basically just a remote server with a few bells and whistles. Actually a more accurate description might be a phrase some marketing **** thought up and has somehow tricked the media to talk about it all the time.

Cork24

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

Scratching my head here. Surely if you have IT skills (such as a computer science qualification) you can understand cloud computing in about 10 seconds. It's basically just a remote server with a few bells and whistles. Actually a more accurate description might be a phrase some marketing **** thought up and has somehow tricked the media to talk about it all the time.

Lol.. Cloud computing is more then just a remote server.

It's understanding data mining, San, nas back up systems the backbone of cloud computing

Cork24

http://courses.cit.ie/index.cfm/page/course/courseId/724

If you could understand and master all this in 10 sec.

Cork24

http://courses.cit.ie/index.cfm/page/course/courseId/974

And this is the masters in cloud

Mr. Loverman

Cork24 wrote: »

Lol.. Cloud computing is more then just a remote server.

It's understanding data mining, San, nas back up systems the backbone of cloud computing

LOL? Really?

You do realise data mining, SAN & NAS are absolutely in no way unique to cloud computing? Or necessary for something to be called cloud computing?

Data mining?!

For the record as part of my business I have been doing data mining for about 10 years. A server of mine has previously used SAN. And I am sure as part of my career I have come across NAS at some stage. And I also worked on a nonsense cloud computing project for an ex employer (purely because the MD was an idiot who always wanted us to do whatever the latest buzzword was)...

No one should ever do a degree or masters in cloud computing. It is unnecessary.

EDIT: Of course, I have no problem with "cloud computing" being mentioned as part of a computer science degree or masters. But it should be explained for what it really is.

clubcrown

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

LOL? Really?

You do realise data mining, SAN & NAS are absolutely in no way unique to cloud computing? Or necessary for something to be called cloud computing?

Data mining?!

For the record as part of my business I have been doing data mining for about 10 years. A server of mine has previously used SAN. And I am sure as part of my career I have come across NAS at some stage. And I also worked on a nonsense cloud computing project for an ex employer (purely because the MD was an idiot who always wanted us to do whatever the latest buzzword was)...

No one should ever do a degree or masters in cloud computing. It is unnecessary.

EDIT: Of course, I have no problem with "cloud computing" being mentioned as part of a computer science degree or masters. But it should be explained for what it really is.

Not sure what that lad is on about as regards data mining but some of the stuff we're looking at ..............

Security issues around virtualisation, how to transition to SOA with the ultimate aim of deploying your business to a cloud platform, how to migrate from a traditional internal network to a cloud environment, moving your business to something like Salesforce with all the attendant changes to business processes, etc etc.

These are not exactly VMware or Xen certification courses, they are a starting point towards that stuff if thats the way you want to go. Not everyone who is doing these courses has a computer science degree to start with. Cloud computing is a buzzword in and of itself, sure - but its an actual thing that people are working with. Working with Azure and Salesforce.com is a little more involved than hosting with Digiweb or whoever.

There aren't many people in my course who have 10 years experience in the industry, so maybe stop sneering for a second and engage your brain. We have to start somewhere. This course is giving a fairly good grounding in web dev, along with good content around the cloud platforms and what they do.

Go read about cloud computing for 10 minutes as suggested earlier in the thread. Then give me 6000 words on what interoperability in SOA means for a business considering moving their internal sales and finance platforms to force.com.

Easy?

uck51js9zml2yt

kippy wrote: »

I doubt the guys teaching in it have stepped outside the educational institution in question in years - so I'd be skeptical as to where they got their "expertise".

Were do you get your "facts" from ?
A lot of the lecturers on the PG Cloud are well known names in the industry with a lot of experience behind them.

I'm amazed at the number of people on here dismissing the course without having any knowledge of it.
Granted, its not perfect and had it's problems, but so does every course on its first time out. I'm certainly glad I've done it.

conor.hogan.2

We can all do Database work but that does not mean we do not have DBAs* who actually specialize in it.

*or testers, whoever etc