Cloud Computing Foundations

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Cloud Computing Foundations

This course is part of Building Cloud Computing Solutions at Scale Specialization

Instructor: Noah Gift

82,828 already enrolled

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5 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

1,033 reviews

Beginner level

Recommended experience

Flexible schedule

4 weeks at 10 hours a week

Learn at your own pace

95%

Most learners liked this course

5 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

1,033 reviews

Beginner level

Recommended experience

Flexible schedule

4 weeks at 10 hours a week

Learn at your own pace

95%

Most learners liked this course

Skills you'll gain

Tools you'll learn

Details to know

Shareable certificate

Add to your LinkedIn profile

Assessments

15 assignments

Taught in English

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This course is part of the Building Cloud Computing Solutions at Scale Specialization

When you enroll in this course, you'll also be enrolled in this Specialization.

Learn new concepts from industry experts
Gain a foundational understanding of a subject or tool
Develop job-relevant skills with hands-on projects
Earn a shareable career certificate

There are 5 modules in this course

Welcome to the first course in the Building Cloud Computing Solutions at Scale Specialization! In this course, you will learn how to build foundational Cloud computing infrastructure, including websites involving serverless technology and virtual machines. You will also learn how to apply Agile software development techniques to projects which will be useful in building portfolio projects and global-scale Cloud infrastructures.

This week, you will learn how to access the free tiers of three Cloud environments. You will then have an opportunity to review the details of the final project in this course: Building a Hugo Static Website that is Continuously Deployed using AWS Code Build and AWS S3 Static Hosting. Each week, you will learn and build upon key Cloud development skills to prepare you for this final course project.

What's included

5 videos6 readings1 assignment1 discussion prompt

5 videosTotal 9 minutes

Instructor Introduction2 minutes
Course Introduction2 minutes
Course Prerequisites2 minutes
Lab Onboarding2 minutes
Course 1 Project Overview2 minutes

6 readingsTotal 75 minutes

Course Structure and Discussion Etiquette10 minutes
AWS Cloud9 vs AWS CodeCatalyst 10 minutes
Getting Started and Course Gotchas10 minutes
Report a problem with the course5 minutes
Create a free account with AWS, Azure and GCP30 minutes
Specialization Project Roadmap: Course 1 10 minutes

1 assignmentTotal 30 minutes

Confirming Free Tier Cloud Accounts30 minutes

1 discussion promptTotal 10 minutes

Introductions10 minutes

Getting started with a good plan is the most challenging part of building software. Before we dive into the technical aspects of Cloud development, let's spend some time discussing strategies for effective technical communication. This week, you will learn strategies for expressing thoughts effectively in a technical forum in a digitally native way, constructing effective technical discussions that enhance discussions and provide reusable documentation and explaining successful techniques for teamwork in technical projects. You will apply this by creating a project plan for the Final Course Project. This project plan includes a spreadsheet, a GitHub project and a Trello board.

What's included

12 videos9 readings4 assignments4 discussion prompts2 ungraded labs

12 videosTotal 51 minutes

Introduction to Technical Discussions2 minutes
Technical Discussions with Markdown, GitHub and Jupyter/Colab11 minutes
Creating Technical Demo Videos2 minutes
Effective Critical Thinking5 minutes
Effective Technical Triple Threat3 minutes
Introduction to Effective Technical Teamwork1 minute
Effective Technical Teamwork6 minutes
Introduction to Technical Project Management2 minutes
Effective Technical Project Management5 minutes
Ticket Tracking with Trello5 minutes
Project Planning with Spreadsheets5 minutes
Project Management Anti-Patterns5 minutes

9 readingsTotal 90 minutes

Key Terms10 minutes
Effective Technical Discussions10 minutes
Lesson Reflection10 minutes
Key Terms10 minutes
Lesson Reflections10 minutes
Key Terms10 minutes
Effective Technical Project Management10 minutes
Lesson Reflection10 minutes
Project Plan for Course 1 Project10 minutes

4 assignmentsTotal 110 minutes

Effective Technical Communication Quiz20 minutes
Quiz-Effective Technical Project Management30 minutes
Quiz-Effective Technical Teamwork30 minutes
Quiz-Effective Technical Project Management30 minutes

4 discussion promptsTotal 90 minutes

Reproducible Technical Discussion10 minutes
Team Performance Analysis10 minutes
Agile vs. Waterfall Planning10 minutes
Course 1 Project Plan60 minutes

2 ungraded labsTotal 120 minutes

Create Markdown in Jupyter60 minutes
Unit Testing60 minutes

This week, you will learn how to build continuous delivery pipelines and apply the essential practices of continuous integration in Cloud onboarding. These pipelines use both Cloud-native build servers as well as the popular 3rd party SaaS build server: GitHub Actions. Additionally you build Continuous Delivery Pipelines in multiple Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, and GCP).

What's included

18 videos15 readings4 assignments3 discussion prompts3 ungraded labs

18 videosTotal 119 minutes

Introduction to AWS Cloud Development5 minutes
Introduction to Continuous Integration4 minutes
Cloud Development with AWS Cloud99 minutes
Constructing a Python Project Scaffold19 minutes
Introduction to GitHub Actions8 minutes
Setup Amazon CodeCatalyst5 minutes
CodeWhisperer Natural Language to Bash CLI4 minutes
Introduction to Azure Cloud Development2 minutes
Introduction to Testing5 minutes
Cloud Development with Azure Cloud Shell4 minutes
Azure Cloud Shell Continuous Integration from Zero12 minutes
Introduction to GCP Cloud Development1 minute
Development Onboarding with GCP 8 minutes
Introduction to Continuous Delivery5 minutes
Cloud Development with Google Cloud Shell6 minutes
GCP Google App Engine Continuous Delivery from Zero9 minutes
Microservices with GCP Cloud Run5 minutes
Using Google Cloud Functions7 minutes

15 readingsTotal 150 minutes

Cloud Onboarding with Amazon Web Services (AWS)10 minutes
Key Terms10 minutes
Review GitHub Actions GitHub Project10 minutes
What is Amazon CodeCatalyst10 minutes
What is CodeWhisperer?10 minutes
Lesson Reflection10 minutes
Key Terms10 minutes
Cloud Onboarding for Azure10 minutes
What is a Makefile and Why Do You Need it?10 minutes
Lesson Reflection10 minutes
Key Terms10 minutes
Cloud Onboarding for GCP10 minutes
GAE CD GitHub Source Code Walkthrough10 minutes
Lesson Reflection10 minutes
Multi-Cloud Continuous Integration10 minutes

4 assignmentsTotal 120 minutes

Cloud Onboarding Quiz30 minutes
Quiz-Create an AWS Cloud Development Environment30 minutes
Quiz-Create an Azure Cloud Development Environment30 minutes
Quiz-Create a GCP Cloud Development Environment 30 minutes

3 discussion promptsTotal 30 minutes

Pros and Cons of Cloud-based Development Environment10 minutes
Strengths and Weaknesses of Testing10 minutes
Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD)10 minutes

3 ungraded labsTotal 180 minutes

Python Scaffold60 minutes
Makefile Hello World60 minutes
Python Flask Hello World60 minutes

This week, you will learn about the different types of Cloud service models. These models include: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Serverless. You will apply this knowledge by building multiple types of websites: Static, serverless, virtualized and PaaS.

What's included

14 videos10 readings4 assignments3 discussion prompts1 ungraded lab

14 videosTotal 71 minutes

Introduction to Cloud Computing2 minutes
What is Cloud Computing?3 minutes
Cloud Computing Service Models5 minutes
Introduction to Building Multiple Websites3 minutes
Building a Static S3 Website on AWS6 minutes
Using AWS Lambda Console to Build Python Lambda Function5 minutes
Building a Serverless Website on AWS Lambda6 minutes
Building a Website on an EC2 Virtual Machine10 minutes
Building a Website using PaaS with AWS Beanstalk12 minutes
Static Websites with Zola3 minutes
Customizing Zola Theme4 minutes
Introduction to Cloud Computing Economics2 minutes
Cloud Computing Economics: A Story2 minutes
Cloud Economics Deep Dive9 minutes

10 readingsTotal 100 minutes

Key Terms10 minutes
Cloud Computing Service Models10 minutes
Lesson Reflection10 minutes
Key Terms10 minutes
AWS Lambda Console Gotchas10 minutes
Building Multiple Types of Websites10 minutes
Lesson Reflection10 minutes
Key Terms10 minutes
Lesson Reflection10 minutes
Continuous Delivery with AWS Elastic Beanstalk10 minutes

4 assignmentsTotal 120 minutes

Cloud Service Model Quiz30 minutes
Quiz-Cloud Computing Service Models30 minutes
Quiz-Build Multiple Websites: Static, Serverless, Virtualized, PaaS30 minutes
Quiz-Case Studies of Cloud Computing Economics30 minutes

3 discussion promptsTotal 30 minutes

Cloud Service Model10 minutes
Serverless Web Applications10 minutes
Economics of Cloud Computing10 minutes

1 ungraded labTotal 60 minutes

Zola Static Site60 minutes

This week, you will learn DevOps and how to apply the principles of DevOps to projects you work on. Then, you will examine the shared practices of software development and IT operations using DevOps. Finally, you will utilize Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to manage Cloud Infrastructure and develop continuous delivery pipelines.

What's included

18 videos13 readings2 assignments3 discussion prompts4 ungraded labs

18 videosTotal 93 minutes

Introduction to DevOps1 minute
DevOps in the Real World1 minute
Benefits of DevOps3 minutes
DevOps Best Practices4 minutes
Introduction to Managing Cloud Infrastructure using IaC2 minutes
IaC in the Real World3 minutes
What is IaC?2 minutes
Launching a VM with Terraform on GCP6 minutes
Hello World AWS CDK for Python7 minutes
Introduction to Continuous Pipelines2 minutes
Continuous Delivery Overview2 minutes
Continuous Delivery Deep Dive4 minutes
Continuously Deploy Flask Machine Learning Application with Azure4 minutes
Continuous Delivery Pipeline with a Lint Operation using Azure4 minutes
Initial Setup of AWS Cloud9 and GitHub for Hugo5 minutes
Build Hugo Directory in AWS Cloud920 minutes
Copy Hugo Data into AWS Cloud9 S3 Bucket5 minutes
Automatic Updating of Hugo in AWS Cloud919 minutes

13 readingsTotal 130 minutes

Key Terms10 minutes
What is DevOps?10 minutes
Lesson Reflection10 minutes
Key Terms10 minutes
What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?10 minutes
Create a Linux VM with Infrastructure in Azure using Terraform10 minutes
Lesson Reflection10 minutes
Key Terms10 minutes
Continuous Delivery for Hugo Static Site from Zero10 minutes
Lesson Reflection10 minutes
Create a Continuous Delivery Pipeline for an AWS Website 10 minutes
Next Steps10 minutes
Share your learning experience10 minutes

2 assignmentsTotal 60 minutes

DevOps Principles Quiz30 minutes
Quiz-Develop Continuous Pipelines30 minutes

3 discussion promptsTotal 30 minutes

DevOps Core Principles10 minutes
Infrastructure as Code10 minutes
Continuous Delivery10 minutes

4 ungraded labsTotal 240 minutes

Explore Hugo Static Website Builder60 minutes
Sandbox Jupyter60 minutes
Sandbox VSCode60 minutes
Sandbox Linux Desktop60 minutes

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Instructor

Instructor ratings

(77 ratings)

Noah Gift

Duke University

40 Courses283,456 learners

Offered by

Duke University

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Reviewed on May 24, 2026

This was an interactive learning experience that improved my industry-relevant skills and strengthened my professional knowledge. The instructors explained everything very clearly.

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To access the course materials, assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience when you enroll in a course. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid. The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.

When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile.

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