Creating Learning Opportunities for Undergraduates in Developing Technologies (CLOUDTech)

The use of cloud technology and virtualization is a growing trend both nationally and locally. Employers are increasingly moving their information technology data to the cloud. This project will develop educational resources in Cloud Computing Technology to address a critical industry need. Due to the emerging and evolving nature of cloud technology, institutions of higher education have not yet widely created curricula and supporting labs to effectively educate technicians who can manage, troubleshoot, and support cloud infrastructure. The project aims to advance knowledge in cloud technologies, including virtualization, storage, network/cybersecurity, programming, and automation. It plans to implement a new cloud infrastructure that will support secure remote access to a live cloud environment. This access will enable interested faculty from other institutions to learn how to create and use the environment. The project will also strive to engage K-12 students in STEM learning through outreach activities. Through dissemination, these cloud curricular resources will have the potential to expand educational and career pathways, prepare students for high-skill/high-demand occupations in information technology, and promote the development of STEM education.

The primary goal of this project is to advance the national knowledge base of virtualization and cloud technology curriculum and hands-on lab activities to meet industry needs. A secondary goal is to strengthen the STEM pipeline in information technology through K-12 outreach and the development of transfer pathways. This project will create a robust Cloud Computing Environment that features a fully functional OpenStack Cloud. Within that environment and an existing virtualized cloud lab environment, students will be able to create cloud instances for programming language environments, learn how to migrate cloud instances from this private cloud to a public cloud provider, develop and deploy applications to the cloud, and be introduced to software development and operations concepts and skills. In addition, students will learn to use scripting languages to maintain and secure software-defined datacenters and evaluate operating system and data storage models to design efficient applications. The project will build on prior work with an Infrastructure as a Service cloud development model to add curriculum related to Platform as a Service and Software as a Service models. Broad dissemination of the curriculum, labs, and other materials developed by the project, including a User's Guide to facilitate adaptation, have the potential to improve technical education at postsecondary institutions on a national scale.