Getting Started with the Cloud

Learning objectives

  • Recognize why you might (and might not) want to host services in the cloud.
  • Differentiate between IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.
  • List some common cloud services.
  • Start and stop an EC2 instance on AWS.

Quick Section Overview

So this section is really targeting the student who wants to host a project for portfolio purposes, the hobbyist who’s hosting a toy project, or the data science leader who has no choice but to host things for themselves because they just can’t get IT/Admin support.

🎉🎉🎉 I’ve been two of those things in the last year!

Why cloud?

  • It probably isn’t cheaper.
  • It’s faster and easier.
    • No need to wait for new hardware to arrive and be installed.

Things as a Service

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS, “eye-az”) Raw ingredients for a cake.

Platform as a Service (PaaS, “pass”) A box of Betty Crocker cake mix.

Software as a Service (SaaS, “sass”) An undecorated sheet cake.

Common Cloud Services

Service AWS Azure GCP
Kubernetes cluster EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service) GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine)
Run a function as an API Lambda Azure Functions Google Cloud Functions
Database RDS/Redshift Azure Database Google Cloud SQL
ML Platform SageMaker Azure ML Vertex AI

Discuss the Lab

https://aws.amazon.com

Meeting Videos

Cohort 1