Depending on who you talk to, cloud computing is either (i) a revolutionary idea that is rapidly changing the face of computing, or (ii) an old idea whose time has come, or (iii) just hype, or (iv) evil. What is clear, however, is that cloud computing systems run at a scale never seen before, and change the economics and assumptions behind computing in important, fundamental ways. The purpose of this seminar course is to understand the key technical ideas and concepts behind cloud computing systems, covering a broad range of topics: data storage, management and processing; virtualization; security; data center networks; "X-as-a-service" architectures; (X=infastructure, platform, or software); applications (particularly cloud-oriented mobile services); and risks for both individuals and companies.
This is a seminar course with materials drawn from the research literature and technical white papers.
Evaluation: The evaluation will be based on class participation and a term paper. The term paper should be written individually or in a team of two students, with the instructor's participation and direction. The expected output of the class is a "monograph" on cloud computing research and practice, obtained by dividing up several sections based on the topics studied in the course, with the term papers constituting the sections in the monograph.