Introducing Cloud Computing with a Senior Design Project in Undergraduate Education of Computer System and Network Administration

摘要

With the rapid growth of operational cloud computing systems and their user community, it is desirable to incorporate the management and administration of cloud computing into the curriculum of information technology (IT) education to meet the needs of the industry and its users. It is challenging to teach cloud computing in a regular IT course with hands-on activities due to various reasons including the lack of equipment and software to build a cloud. During the last two semesters, we had incorporated cloud computing into our curriculum of undergraduate education for computer systems and network administration through a senior design project. In this project, two clouds were built using commonly available equipment by integrating a number of open source software units. Through this project, the students learned the basic concepts and knowledge of cloud computing as well as related technologies. The students and faculty advisors gained valuable experience by deploying, configuring and integrating computing clouds, and this knowledge was conveyed to other students and faculty through monthly presentations and a final project presentation. In this paper, we will present these two clouds and discuss the experience gained from this project with the hope of being a reference for others in the IT education community.