Cloud Computing

Overview

This course introduces the basic technologies at the foundation of cloud computing, a widely used buzzword that indicates the use of various services, such as software development platforms, servers, storage and software, over the Internet, often referred to as the cloud. Course topics starts with technological aspects, i.e., the hardware and software concepts and primitives required to build a cloud computing platform. The second part has a more system-oriented view and it presents the main software platforms and architectures in use in modern cloud computing.

This course, offered in English, is available to all Computer Engineering (master-level degree) students at Politecnico di Torino. This site refers to Academic Year 2022/2023.

Prerequisites

General knowledge about computer architecture and computer networks.

Lecturers

The course is taught by Fulvio Risso, and Marco Iorio.

Class recordings

Lectures of this class are registered and made available on the official teaching portal at Politecnico di Torino. Recordings are available only to enrolled students. Recording are made in a “best effort” way; some class recordings may not be available due to technical problems (e.g., a crash in professor's laptop) or for copyright problems (e.g., seminars given from non-Polito people).

Slack Workspace

To facilitate the interactions among students, and from students and professors, we created a dedicated Slack workspace. Please join at https://cloud-polito.slack.com/join/signup .

Lab and exercises

This course includes several labs, focusing on the most important topics presented in the lectures.

Labs represent a key helper to pass (successfully) the exam. Please note that the exam may include a practical exercise.

Labs will be delivered through CrownLabs; please make sure you have a valid account, which may be required also during the exam.

Personal projects

Students with high average mark (>27/30) can ask to replace the exam with a personal project. The project can focus on either research, engineering, or bibliographic topics. In most cases it requires a short presentation (30 mins) in which the student discusses the achieved results.

The list of proposed projects is available at the Project page.

Exams

The exam includes a variable mix of exercises, open-answer questions, and closed-answer questions. In addition, a practical exercise to be carried out directly on CrownLabs is also possible.

Students whose grade exceeds a given threshold have the possibility to ask for an additional oral examination. This consists in one question, whose outcome can improve or worsen the grade of the written examination.

More details about exam rules are available in the slides presented at the beginning of the course.

Textbooks

Unfortunately no textbook is available for this course. Slides and labs will be delivered during the course are are available in the Syllabus page.