A thorough conceptual overview of cloud computing, distributed systems and peer-to-peer systems and the way they function in failure-ridden circumstances. The course gives a holistic view of the various factors and considerations that go into the design and operation of large scale distributed systems involving thousand of discrete computers over an expansive and unreliable network. The course requires good knowledge of C++ in order to complete the programming assignment. The quizzes and homework are mildly challenging and require patience to carefully work out the problems but the programming assignment is the one that will take the largest time commitment and it helps to get started early with it.

The course is very well laid out. Prof. Gupta has a very clear voice and is easy to follow. The tests at the end of each chapter are non trivial and really ensure you understood the concepts thoroughly. The course is fairly old (2012?), for a rapidly developing field like cloud computing, I imagine several portions of the course are probably out of date. I suggest the relevant portions of the course be updated periodically. Even if the course is not entirely revised, at a minimum add an extra section highlighting the new changes.

The course teaches a lot of core concepts of distributed systems (clouds included). The content is well delivered and the homework reflects the material very well. The homework is appropriately tough.

There is an optional programming assignment for setting up a distributed network of nodes with failure detection. I learned a lot about gossip based information spreading while doing the exercise. That said, the assignment is not clearly explained and it is hard to get started.

Overall I did enjoy the course and learned a great deal.

The presentations are very good, some of the best I've seen in a video lecture series. With this in mind, there were lectures where I felt a bit more explanation would have helped me. For those I found additional external resources.

I enjoyed the programming assignment; but, the assignment uses too many different ways of storing the address. One consistent way should be chosen between the Node / Emulation Layer / Member, preferably a non-char packed approach (unless the address is always handled as a plain text string).

Great course overall, personally I've especially liked the programming assignment! It's not production quality code for sure, but it was fun to implement, although if you don't have C++ experience, then it can be difficult.

The homework quizzes were hard, especially in the final weeks, and required retrying multiple times at some points — but it's definitely worth it, since the difficulty helps with gaining better understanding.

The material is covered in depth and clearly, the content is very current while still covering the historic origins and the development of the current state fo the art. It comes with evaluations that are not aimed towards memorization, but rather towards understanding the subject. As a cherry on top, they allow you to take a verified certificate towards credit on the Masters degree.

Cloud computing course provides an overview of the concepts of distributed processing. The algorithms behind real world distributed applications are well explained. The video lectures and quiz questions on various distributed protocols provide insights into the working of these systems. Highly recommended. Thanks Prof. Indranil Gupta and the Coursera community!!

The course was quite enjoyable, I love the assignment part I wish it was in Java. Struggled with the C++ memory manipulation part of the algorithm which was nothing to do with the actual implementation, having not coded in C++ over a decade was reason for the struggle. Overall all quizzes and final assignment was both challenging and enjoyable.

Perfect! The professor explain concept clearly and easy to understand. The course cover the concept and the real product in industry, so you will not be boring. The programming assignment is interesting, and it's really a challenge for me as my poor C++ :( . It take me almost 12 hours to finish the programming assignment.

Excellent course. I'm looking forward to continuing in this specialization.

Do read the description of the course carefully before starting. It is not for beginners. However, if you can program in C or C++ and have a solid computer science background (Bachelor's degree or equivalent), this course will be quite easy.

Was looking for MOOC to start learning about Distributed Systems/Cloud Computing. After completing this course and going through the readings suggested, feel its a good start and i got an insight into the foundation concepts/primitives that make distributed systems work. Highly recommend this course!

Everything was really well explained, quizzes are hard as they need to be, but not impossible and the instructor has a really good personality.

The only "bad" thing was the programming assigment. It was really hard (but again, possible) and the specifications were poor.

In general, a five star course.

a very good course for cloud study. the content is colorful , a lot of examples to support deep understanding of the concepts. The biggest drawback is that maybe there can be some small programming assignment after each week's course. And the standard answers of the Week5 quizz have some bugs.

The course is worthwhile. The instructor explained the concept clearly in engaging way that I rarely found on Coursera. The most I liked is the design of assignments. As well as, it has some interviews of academics and professionals which shapes your thoughts very well.

It's a well organized course which makes me rebuilt my knowledge base. I've read parts of the concepts during my past work, but most of them confused me. This course gives me a "aha" moments to pick all the fracture parts together. I'll follow the next courses.

Very well taught, easy to understand. The questions in the exams have been very thoughtfully selected, one must pay attention to the content and understand the concept. Going to remember the concepts for long time after watching & listing the tutorials.

Interesting and challenging programming assignment. I like to topics this course goes through: membership protocol, snapshot, CAP, and Paxos. I would highly recommend people who are interested in distributed system take this course.

An excellent course for a beginner who wants to explore the world of cloud computing. The instructor explained all the concepts very well. Just the programming assignment was a bit difficult as no insights were provided to it.

I am giving a 5 starts because I really enjoyed the course and I learned a lot. but to be honest I almost gave up. The programming assignment is a little bit frustrating since there is really not help and not much guidance.

Amazing, very rich content, it allows you to go deep in understanding distributed systems. May be a hard course if you are just looking to understand cloud computing superficially, and much more if you don't know C++.

Very useful course. It built my Cloud Computing basis from scratch. Fisrt course gives me the enthusiasm to start the later ones. A good place for studying and sharing with course mates. Thank you!

This instructor is fantastic. He is exceptionally thorough and his delivery is very good as well. This is a course definitely worth taking if you are interested in learning more about the cloud.

Great course, I would recommend to everyone who wants to understand the basics of cloud computing. The course material is excellent, the instructor Indy is phenomenal and the exams are marvelous.

Great Course! A little more contents regarding the Programming Assignment would have made it even better. I'd like to thank the entire Team for making this wonderful course. :)

Nice topics covered in the course. Homeworks and the final exam are easy. Course Assignment is a nice implementation of what the lectures cover, but difficult to start.