CLOUDCAMPUSIQ
Cloud Foundations - Sample Learning Guide

A starting point for understanding a cloud application

1. BEGIN WITH THE WORK

Describe what the application must do before choosing services. A course site
needs to deliver pages and provide learning material. A full learning platform
may also need learner identities, enrollments, progress records, and payments.
Each added responsibility changes the design.

Questions to ask:
- What information does the application handle?
- Who needs to read or change that information?
- How would an interruption affect the people using the application?

2. SEPARATE THE RESPONSIBILITIES

Compute runs the application code. Storage retains information. Networking
connects users and services. A managed container platform can run the web
application while object storage holds files such as course handouts.

Keep a running application separate from durable learning material. Replacing
an application instance should not remove the course files.

3. GIVE ACCESS A PURPOSE

The identity that creates infrastructure has a different job from the running
application. An application that only reads a sample guide needs read access to
that guide; it does not automatically need permission to change every file.

HTTPS protects traffic on the connection where it is enabled. In a system with
several network hops, check each connection rather than assuming that the
browser's secure connection proves every hop uses TLS.

4. UNDERSTAND AVAILABILITY AND SCALABILITY

Availability concerns whether a service can be used when needed. Scalability
concerns its ability to handle changes in demand. Multiple instances can help
reduce dependence on one running process, but capacity still needs to be
measured against a realistic workload.

Two instances alone do not prove a particular user capacity. Consider request
frequency, response size, external dependencies, and the effect of a failure.

5. MEASURE BEFORE MAKING A CLAIM

Useful observations include request volume, response time, server errors,
healthy application targets, and resource use. An alert should describe a
condition that deserves attention and a useful next step.

Cost views help connect a design choice to its ongoing expense. Budgets can
notify an operator; a notification by itself does not stop cloud spending.

REFLECTION

Pick a familiar website. Identify the work done by its application, the files
it needs to retain, and one event that might interrupt it. Then describe a
measurement that would help the operator notice that interruption.

This guide is the sample material for the CloudCampusIQ course preview.

FURTHER READING

AWS Well-Architected Framework:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/framework/welcome.html

Amazon ECS task IAM roles:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECS/latest/developerguide/task-iam-roles.html

Amazon S3 security best practices:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/security-best-practices.html