A CLOUD IN A CUPBOARD: HOW TO TEACH MODERN TECHNOLOGIES IN A RESOURCE-CONSTRAINED ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

It is highly desirable to provide our computer science and software engineering students with hands-on exposure to currently industry techniques and technologies. One area of extreme growth and skills shortage is cloud computing which led to a curriculum redesign and a new module to teach these skills to final year students. Cloud computing products are available from a number of vendors, but their academic programmes often leave much to be desired, with limited credits and features. In the resource-constrained university sector simply buying vendor credits for students would be expensive but also wasteful as there is no capital investment. In an attempt to provide hands-on experience with the latest technologies an in-house “cloud in a cupboard” was designed and created at Queen’s University Belfast. This took advantage of the wide range of free open-source software systems which underpin modern cloud vendors and, for very little cost thanks to re-purposed equipment, was able to support a large final-year module and several undergraduate dissertation projects successfully. Student feedback was very positive, and plans continue to grow this system further to support the current functionality and add more in the coming years.