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Introducing the MSU Cloud Computing Fellowship

Rosie facing an Atlantic Ocean storm animation

You don't have to face the clouds alone

Welcome!

This is the first 'session' of the MSU Cloud Computing Fellowship (CCF) for 2022-2023. For a description of the program and how sessions are organized, see the CCF home page

The goals of this introductory session are to orient you to this program, introduce ourselves to each other, provide some background on cloud computing, set up our technology, and discuss what all of our expectations are.

Activities:

Introduce yourself on Microsoft Teams

You should have all been given access to a Team "MSU ICER Cloud Computing Fellowship" via your NetID.

Confirm Access to Azure Portal

  • Go to https://portal.azure.com.
  • Log in with your MSU netid and password.
  • Ensure you can access the Azure main web "portal."
  • You don't need to (and shouldn't) create any new resources or work with this website; simply confirm you have access. You may see a list of "resources" and will introduce Azure during our first meeting.

Introductions

MSU Cloud Computing Fellowship Team

  • Dr. Brian O'Shea, Director, MSU Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research (ICER), Professor, Physics
  • Dr. Mahmoud Parvizi, Co-Instructor
    • Research Consultant and Software Engineer, Institute for Cyber Enabled Research
    • Participant in first Fellowship cohort
    • Manager of ICER Training
  • Patrick Bills, Co-Instructor
    • Research Software Engineer, Institute for Cyber Enabled Research.
  • Brad Fears, Contributor, MSU IT Services Research Cyber Infrastructure (IT RCI)
    • IT support staff with certification in AWS and Azure

Sponsored by ICER, MSU Office of Research and Innovation (ORI), and MSU IT Services Research Cyberinfrastructure (RCI)

Participant Introductions & Discussion

  • About you: your preferred name and pronouns, which degree program or department if faculty.
  • 2 minute research synopsis and methods
  • Previous experience with reseach computing including cloud computing (if any)
  • Current research computing hurdles, roadblocks, challenges & triumphs
  • Which aspect of cloud computing are you most interested in learning and using to support your research?

Fellowship Program Overview

Fellowship Goals

Help you get an understanding of:

  • what is cloud computing?
  • what is cloud computing useful for?
  • when should it use it for my research computing?
  • how can I use it?
  • Understanding of the context of the technology we are learning about.

Help you get some practical experience

  • apply cloud to some aspect of your own research
  • apply cloud to generic/canned research-like problem

Fellowship - Learn from and support your fellow researchers

Non-Goals: - cover all aspects of cloud - we don't cover networks for example due to time constraints - prepare you for a cloud computing certification (there are many existing resources for that) - become experts in everything cloud - build a dot-com empire

Program Overview

The syllabus" is the home page of this website and has a detailed schedule. Keep an eye on the home page for updates!

  • Fall semester: Workshops (Pat Bills):
    • Schedule and expectation;
    • website structure, session materials and activities, readings);
    • in-person meeting approx bi-weekly and excluding holidays;
    • our expectations.
  • Winter/Spring semester: Projects (Mahmoud Parvizi):
    • Goals, schedule and expectation;
    • Proposal write-up due early January, and presentations during semseter;
    • Check-points to discuss progress and hurdles
  • On-going help
  • Final presentation during Symposium late april

Introduction to Cloud Computing

Hands-on: Using the Azure Portal

  1. Interacting with Azure using the Portal web interface
  2. Setting a Budget Alert Using the Azure Portal

Questions and Discussion

  • What things are at the top of your mind as you begin this program?
  • Which of these topics resonates with your previous experience using computing or cloud computing (if any)?

Follow up Activity

Please complete the following prior to our next meeting in 2 weeks:

  • Read about Azure Organization
  • see the topics above and the in-depth readings below to give you more context as you learn
  • Complete the exercise Create a Budget Alert so that you may be notified if you spend more money than you plan to.

*This first part requires significant learning, and the more you do know the better choices you can make when developing your project. *

Bonus Activity

If you are familiar with the command line, Azure offers a web-based terminal/shell with many applications pre-installed. once you have a storage account, you can create a special 'cloud shell' account. We will cover various interfaces to the cloud next time.

Readings

## Optional Readings - Optional Historical Note Who Coined 'Cloud Computing'? by Antonio Regalado, October 2011, MIT Technology Review

  • Optional [M. Armbrust et al. "Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing. Technical Report UCB/EECS-2009-28 "University of California at Berkeley, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, 2009 PDF](https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2009/EECS-2009-28.pdf}
    Written only 3 years after the launch of AWS, this is very insightful discussion of the value of cloud computing