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Session 2: What is the cloud and how does it work? An introduction using storage and virtual machines

About this Session

We are providing materials and activities for this session for you to read and attempt at your own pace. Please attempt these and see how far you can get. Feel free to post on Microsoft Teams if you have any issues, find things that need correcting, or have general questions.

We will host an optional, additional, in-person session to provide help to anyone who wants to attend, Friday September 23 2pm to 3:30p. Since this is outside of pre-arranged schedule, anyone who would like help but can't attend during this please contact us and we will arrange a time for you.

We will discuss all of this material and more during our next regularly scheduled in-person session Friday September 30th.

Overview

Chaplin still from Modern Times 1936 When many people think of "cloud computing" they think of computers in the cloud, or virtual machines. Cloud computing companies offer much more than just virtualized hardware, but this is a good place to start. This session is designed to be a hands-on workshop where we walk-through creating the resources needed for to run a computer in the cloud, logging into this computer, copying data and using that data in a program. At the end of the session you should have a good introduction of what it means to "cloud compute."

Overview Presentation

Cloud Concepts & Virtualization Slides (PDF)

About the Azure Portal

We were introduced to the portal in the first session. The following dives into more detail about 'resource groups' which is the core of how Azure is organized. Note that, as we get started, fellows have access to just a single resource group that we've created for you. You can't create your own but you can create as many resources as yuo need inside this single resource group.

Optional Follow-ons:

Azure Storage

The Activity above had you creat a 'storage account' with no background.

You will see there are different types of storage, but all types must be inside a "storage account" and this "storage account" must be inside a resource group.

We will re-visit concepts and usage of cloud storage in detail, as it's a core aspect of cloud computing.

Virtual Machines

We introduced "virtualization" during our introduction. For IT this means flexibly creating multiple resources on one piece of hardware using software. The main use case is many virtual computers (or servers) on one large computer hardware. This was create prior to cloud, but when you create your own computer in the cloud, it's based on the technology. To a user it may seem very similar, but to the systems IT engineer, it's very different. However these readings may help give you an

Readings:

Activity: create a virtual machine with Azure

Create (and delete) a Virtual Machine with the Azure Portal for both windows and Linux.

Discussion: Why create a VM?

What is a VM good for? The activity above does not discuss why you'd create a VM and connect with remote desktop, only that you can do it. We will discuss that at our next session. Can you think of possible use cases for your research, or other types of research, for a remote computer that could be very powerful or very small?