Cloud Computing Fellowship Projects 2022-2023
The primary activity of the Cloud Computing Fellowship is to support the fellows to create and present a cloud-computing-based project working with research data. During Fall semseter the fellowship provides materials and help to learn core cloud concepts and activies, and Winter/Spring semester is devoted to project development.
About Projects
Project Guide by Mahmoud Parvizi (Slides, PDF)
Time-line and Due dates
Fellows deliver a written proposal for their projects by January 8, 2024 (5pm) via team. Fellows will prepare slides summarizing their proposal, and present to their colleagues in the fellowship on either January 26, February 9th, or February 23. We'll have only up to 6 fellows present each day, so that there is plenty of time for discussion and feedback.
See the 2023-24 schedule for additional due dates. In Winter 2024 more detail will be provided on this site.
Questions, Answers and other Notes
Q. Do I have to use my own data for my project or can I use data from the web or other public data?
A. you can bring any data that you may use for your research, or that demonstrates cloud processes you may use in your research.
Q. Could I work on a problem outside of my research for my project
A. Yes. We encourage fellows to consider some small aspect of their own research to apply to their projects, but not all research can be readily adapted for cloud computing to contribute, especially with very limited time and budget. If the project is related, even tangentially, to your current research project, and you feel your chosen project will advance your career or knowledge of cloud for later application, then by all means please pursue and present what you've learned.
Q. Do I have to use programming in my project?
A. Most of the examples provided in the fellowship talk about processing data with scripts such as R or Python and many researchers are using these for data analysis, but it's not required for a successful project. You could install a program on a powerful virtual machine and show how to use that software along with cloud storage to tackle a large data set (for example). Secondly there are many forms of cloud computing that are not traditional such as data systems which may use a GUI or a language like SQL.
One important aspect of a successful project is "workflow thinking" or how could you design your process so that you could do it 100 times or with some form of automation. That often requires programming but there are cloud systems that don't require programming (e.g. Azure Data Factory). Accumulating and organizing data is a huge part of successful research and using cloud tools to facilitate that and documenting the process, advantages and costs would be a successful project.
Q. Do I have to use Virtual Machine as part of my project?
No you don't, and in fact we encourage you to look for other services in the cloud to work with your data or your research processes.
Q. Do I have to use services that we've covered in the sessions?
A. Cloud companies provide many amazing services, and you are not limited to what we've talked about in the sessions. In addition we don't require you to use "computation" based services alone . If you are interested in using some other service, please contact us and we may find useful resources or connect you with a colleague who has used the service in mind.
Q. Are there constraints on the things I want do with my project? Can I do whatever I want?
A. Our goal is to facilitate your education and advancing your research program as it relates to cloud computing, and that is a very broad goal. If you use the fellowship to develop only a small system to show what's possible or not possible, even on public data, that uses cloud computing, that is an acceptable project.
Q. I want to make a web site or application for my project, can I use a VM? how do I do that?
A. This is a common request and the cloud was invented in part to run web applications. However web application design is a huge subject and the programming involved is almost as complex as any programming or data work you've done for your research. We tend to discourage projects focused on web applications because of the work involved to both 1) create the infrastructure for a website (web server, storage, databases, possibly docker containers, etc) and 2) the web application itself (Python/PHP other language, HTML, Javascript, Style Sheets, etc).
Azure has services for hosting websites but don't attempt this for your project unless you have previous experience making websites or web applications, or if you are up for the big challenge of learning webdev along with cloud computing because the research you are showing off is mostly complete. Secondly web services must be on-line 24/7 and the cost may accumulate quickly.
Finally cybsecurity is a major issues for websites which present an open door to anyone on the Internet. keeping your site secure is a major challenge so during development please turn it off when you are not using it, and consider that web applications are hacked routinely.
However if you are ready to devote the time and this is a goal for your and your advisor please come speak with us as we have experience creating research web applications and we will support you.