AWS Academy Cloud Foundtion

    Cloud computing is the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer. On the other side, AWS, Amazon Web Services is one of the cloud platforms or cloud computing service providers. Providing over 200 fully-featured services over the globe within the region and the availability zone.

          In the effort to meet the high demand expert in the cloud computing department, AWS Academy provides the higher education institution with a free, read-to-teach cloud computing curriculum that allows the students to get their hands on the industry-recognized certification and in-demand cloud job with the knowledge and experience gain throughout the course. Here, the AWS Academy Cloud Foundation is focusing on introducing the overall concept of cloud computing to the students. It provides a detailed overview of the cloud concept, the services provided, security aspects, architecture, pricing, and the support that they provide to the user.

          I was introduced to the concept of cloud computing through one of my courses, Technology and Information System. Throughout the course, I was introduced to multiple of the fourth industrial revolution's technologies where cloud computing is a part of it. At first, I was introduced to the concept and AWS through the industrial talk given by Dr. Qusay Al-Maatouk. Then, I started to join the AWS Academy Cloud Foundation course which allowed me to gain knowledge and experience about the overall concept of cloud computing. Most importantly, I did receive the badge as an acknowledgment or prove that I have completed the course. The course contains 10 modules in total. This includes the cloud concept overview, cloud economic and billing, AWS global infrastructure overview, AWS cloud security,  network and content delivery, compute services, storage, database, cloud architecture, and auto-scaling and monitoring the platform or services.

          It took me around 20 days to complete the course.  Where I started on 27 November 2021, and complete it on 17 December 2021. I would say the process of getting the badges are so interesting and interactive because I am able to have a hands-on experience on some of the services provided by the AWS through the lab activities. I have also been exposed to the overall concept of the services provided on AWS with the explanation given by the instructors. 

I did receive a lot of knowledge and experience in the journey of completing this course. Such as:

• The overview of the cloud concept.
  • What is cloud computing,
  • The advantage of cloud computing, and
  • The overviews of AWS services.
• The financial aspect of cloud services.
  • How the pricing is done or categorized generally,
  • How to manage the billing and the cost on the platform,
  • The concept of AWS organization that allows the users to consolidate multiple AWS accounts based on their need,  and
  • The technicals support provided by AWS.
• The cloud security aspect.
  • The users' responsibility to ensure their accounts' security,
  • IAM, Identity and Administration Management, and
  • The approach needed to secure the account and the data.
• The networking concept and how the content delivery work.
  • The overall concept of networking,
  • Virtual Private Network (VPN)
    • private and private VPN
    • Networking of the VPN
• Experience some of the compute, storage, and database services provided in AWS.
  • The multiple services for each category and their suitable use case.
• The cloud architecture.
  • The important aspect in designing the cloud architecture based on the AWS well-architectured framework design principles.
• The monitoring aspect
  • I got to know how to monitor the services or activities on the cloud.

          In my opinion, every company are encouraged to move to Cloud Computing because they are cost-effective by reducing the capitalized cost in their operation. These included hardware maintenance, utility cost, and a lot more. In addition, cloud computing allows them to scale up or down their server capacity based on their usage. This can prevent system or operation break down due to a sudden increment of data flow, or the waste because of the unused capacity. They also did not need to pay much attention to the physical security of their data and information because most of the cloud services providers did take good care of it. There are a lot more advantages that could be received by the company from shifting to Cloud Computing. However, it will still depend on the need of the company in order for them to decide to shift to Cloud Computing or not.

          As Cloud Computing has been widely used globally, I believe that every computer science/UTM student should learn Cloud Computing. This is to prepare them and let them be familiar with the concept, and if possible, able to practice using cloud computing as it can benefit them in a lot of aspects. Cloud computing also includes services such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and a lot more. With the understanding of cloud computing and how the services work, it can allow and perhaps encourage the students to explore more of those technologies. Hence, improving their knowledge, skills, and experience.

          For those who are interested in getting this badge, I would encourage you to have a basic understanding of computers or information systems. This is to help you to have a better understanding of the concept in the course, and help to ease your journey compared to if you don't have any foundation of understanding of it.

         In my opinion, including getting this badge in the SECP1513 as the course requirement is good to encourage the student to get to know about cloud computing and perhaps help them be able to practice the in the future.