Cloud computing essentials for managers / software engineers Training Course

Virtualization Fundamentals

1. Overview of Operating System Concepts: CPU, Memory, Network, and Storage
2. Hypervisors
   1. The role of a supervisor of supervisors
   2. Distinguishing between the "host" machine and the "guest" operating system
   3. Comparison of Type-1 and Type-2 hypervisors
   4. Examples including Citrix XEN, VMware ESX/ESXi, MS Hyper-V, and IBM LPAR
3. Network Virtualization
   1. Introduction to the 7-Layer OSI Model
   2. Specific focus on the Network layer
   3. The TCP/IP Model or Internet Protocol
4. In-Depth Look at Specific Layers
   1. Application Layer: SSL
   2. Network Layer: TCP
   3. Internet Layer: IPv4/IPv6
   4. Link Layer: Ethernet
5. Packet Structure
   1. Addressing methods: IP Addresses and Domain Names
   2. Components such as Firewalls, Load Balancers, Routers, and Adapters
   3. Virtualized Network concepts
   4. Higher-level abstractions: Subnets and Zones
6. Practical Exercise:
   1. Getting familiar with the ESXi cluster and vSphere client
   2. Creating or updating networks in an ESXi Cluster, deploying guests from VMDK packages, and enabling connectivity between guests within the cluster
   3. Modifying a running VM instance and taking a snapshot
   4. Updating firewall rules in ESXi using the vSphere client

2. Cloud Computing: A Paradigm Shift

1. Providing a rapid, cost-effective pathway to make products or solutions available globally
2. Resource Sharing
   1. Virtualization within a virtualized environment
3. Key Advantages:
   1. On-demand Resource Elasticity
      1. Ideate -> Code -> Deploy without the need for physical infrastructure
      2. Fast CI/CD pipelines
   2. Environment isolation and vertical autonomy
   3. Security through layering
   4. Cost optimization
4. On-premise Cloud solutions and Cloud Providers
5. Cloud as a conceptual abstraction for distributed computing

3. Introduction to Cloud Service Models:

1. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)
   1. Providers include AWS, Azure, and Google
   2. Select one provider for further exploration (AWS is recommended)
      1. Introduction to AWS VPC, AWS EC2, and other services
2. PaaS (Platform as a Service)
   1. Providers include AWS, Azure, Google, CloudFoundry, and Heroku
   2. Introduction to AWS DynamoDB, AWS Kinesis, and similar tools
3. SaaS (Software as a Service)
   1. Brief overview
   2. Examples include Microsoft Office, Confluence, SalesForce, and Slack
4. Understanding the hierarchy: SaaS relies on PaaS, which relies on IaaS, which is built upon Virtualization

4. IaaS Cloud Hands-on Project

1. The project utilizes AWS as the IaaS Cloud Provider
2. Use CentOS/RHEL as the operating system for the remaining exercises
   1. Ubuntu is an acceptable alternative, though RHEL/CentOS is preferred
3. Obtain individual AWS IAM accounts from your cloud administrator
4. Each participant must complete these steps independently
   1. The ability to provision entire infrastructure on-demand demonstrates the true power of cloud computing
   2. Use AWS Wizards (online consoles) to complete these tasks unless otherwise specified
5. Create a public VPC in the us-east-1 Region
   1. Two Subnets (Subnet-1 and Subnet-2) located in two different Availability Zones
      1. Refer to https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/ for guidance
   2. Create three distinct Security Groups
      1. SG-Internet
         1. Permits incoming traffic from the Internet on ports https 443 and http 80
         2. All other incoming connections are blocked
      2. SG-Service
         1. Permits incoming traffic only from the SG-Internet security group on ports https 443 and http 80
         2. Allows ICMP traffic only from SG-Internet
         3. All other incoming connections are blocked
      3. SG-SSH:
         1. Permits SSH (port 22) incoming connections only from the single IP address corresponding to the student's lab machine's public IP (or the proxy's public IP if the machine is behind a proxy)
6. Deploy an AMI instance for the chosen OS (preferably the latest RHEL/CentOS version available) and place it in Subnet-1. Attach the instance to both the SG-Service and SG-SSH groups.
7. Access the instance via SSH from your lab machine.
8. Install an NGINX server on this instance
9. Upload static content of your choice (such as HTML pages or images) to be served by NGINX on port 80 over HTTP, and define the URLs for them.
10. Test the URL from the instance itself.
11. Create a new AMI image from this running instance.
12. Deploy the new AMI and place the instance in Subnet-2. Attach the instance to the SG-Service and SG-SSH groups.
13. Start the NGINX server and verify that the access URL for the static content created in the previous step is working.
14. Create a new "classic" Elastic Load Balancer and associate it with SG-Internet.
    1. Understand the differences between Application Load Balancers and Network Load Balancers.
15. Establish a routing rule that forwards all http 80 and https 443 traffic to the target group containing the two instances created above.
16. Using a certificate management tool (such as Java keytool), generate a key-pair and a self-signed certificate, then import the certificate into AWS Certificate Manager (ACM).

5. Cloud Monitoring: Introduction and Hands-on Project

1. AWS CloudWatch metrics
2. Navigate to the AWS CloudWatch dashboard for the instances
   1. Retrieve relevant metrics and analyze their variations over time
      1. Reference: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/viewing_metrics_with_cloudwatch.html
3. Navigate to the AWS CloudWatch dashboard for the ELB
   1. Monitor ELB metrics and explain their fluctuations over time
   2. Reference: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/classic/elb-cloudwatch-metrics.html

6. Advanced Concepts for Further Study

1. Hybrid Cloud environments combining on-premise and public cloud
2. Migration strategies from on-premise to public cloud
   1. Application code migration
   2. Database migration
3. DevOps practices
   1. Infrastructure as Code
   2. AWS CloudFormation Templates
4. Auto-scaling
   1. Using AWS CloudWatch metrics to determine system health