Cloud Computing Masterclass - Deployment to Administration

Leverages infrastructure as a service to provision scalable on-demand compute, storage, and network resources via dashboards and APIs, reducing on-premise costs and enabling rapid deployment across regions.

Explore platform as a service (PaaS), where a cloud provider manages software, operating system, middleware, runtime, storage and backups, enabling DevOps collaboration and scalable, rapid deployment.

Explore software as a service, a cloud-hosted app model offering ready-to-use, subscription-based apps via web, desktop, or mobile. Vendors manage infrastructure, data, middleware, upgrades, patches, and security.

Explore the three cloud service models—SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS—comparing on-premises control and cost with vendor-managed infrastructures, and review market share trends favoring SaaS.

Sign up on the node cloud platform, confirm your email, enter billing information and payment information, authorize a $1 hold, and create access to the cloud manager.

Explore the Linode cloud manager dashboard to manage virtual instances, storage volumes, object storage, and marketplace components, while navigating account settings and support resources.

Enable two-factor authentication on your Linode account to secure logins with a password and an authenticator token, using a QR code and a scratch code for recovery.

Deploy and configure your first Linode virtual instance by selecting an Ubuntu image, choosing Newark, New Jersey data center, and setting a strong root password for provisioning.

Explore the Linode instance dashboard to manage a deployed test vm, review analytics, networks, volumes, configurations, backups, and settings, and execute ssh access and admin tasks.

Master secure remote administration of a cloud instance using ssh, performing OS updates, software management, file system tasks, performance monitoring, and security patches via command line.

Discover why passwords fall to brute force and adopt ssh key authentication using private and public keys for secure remote access with open ssh tools.

Learn to generate a 4096-bit ssh key pair on windows using putty gen and putty, configure the server for key-based authentication, and securely connect to a node instance.

Learn to generate a 4096-bit ssh key pair on mac or linux, set a passphrase, and use ssh-copy-id to enable key-based authentication for your node instance, then connect via ssh.

Learn to remotely connect to your instance using the web-based lish console from the node cloud manager, log in as root, and securely terminate the session after use.

Add SSH public keys to the node cloud manager, label and paste your key to enable future instance deployments; during deployment, select the key to provision access.

Explore the Linux kernel foundations, distributions like Ubuntu, and core use cases, including Apache and Nginx web servers, memory and process management, and security.

Explore the Linux file system, learn the hierarchical tree, and differentiate absolute and relative paths while identifying key directories like /root, /bin, /boot, /home, and /var, emphasizing non-root user security.

Log into an Ubuntu server, view available updates via apt list --upgradable, and manage packages with apt update, upgrade, dist-upgrade, install, and remove from repositories hosting over 60,000 software packages.

Explore Linux directory structure and practice navigation with cd, pwd, ls. Navigate to the root and var directories and create a text file with nano in the root home directory.

Learn to create, move, copy, and delete files and directories in Linux using mkdir, mv, cp, rm, and cd, navigate root and user directories, and handle recursive operations.

Configure an Ubuntu server by setting the host name Saturn, updating /etc/hosts, and configuring time zones with time date ctl to align local, UTC, and RTC times.

Explore why the root account poses security risks and how non-root accounts with wheel or pseudo groups limit access. Use the pseudo command or su to grant appropriate administrative privileges.

Create a non root user named Bob, set a password, and add him to the sudo (pseudo) group to grant superuser privileges; verify the user and group membership.

Secure a non-root user by generating a new ssh key pair, configuring bob's .ssh and authorized_keys with proper permissions, and logging in via the private key to gain sudo access.

Enhance server security by disabling root login and password authentication, enforcing ssh key authentication, updating sshd_config, restarting the ssh service, and validating access controls.

Understand how web servers host and deliver web content to users, with hardware and software roles, http requests and responses, and client–server interactions that fetch html, images, videos, and urls.

Compare hosting providers to running a home web server for websites and web applications. Assess internet speed, power consumption, backups, dynamic versus static IP, security, scalability, and liability.

Compare Nginx and Apache to decide the best fit for your use case, highlighting their architectures, concurrency models, handling of dynamic vs static content, module loading, and reverse proxy capabilities.

Explore databases, database management systems, and the database system concept, including monitoring, tuning, backups, and recovery. Learn how relational (SQL) and non-relational (NoSQL) databases support web applications.

Explore the differences between SQL and NoSQL databases, compare relational structures and real-world use cases, and learn how JSON documents, keys, and relationships shape data management.

Compare relational and non-relational databases through ACID transactions and the CAP theorem, highlighting atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability.

Explore the cap theorem for no sql databases, contrasting horizontal scalability with relational databases and detailing consistency, availability, and partition tolerance.

Compare SQL and NoSQL dbms characteristics, including ACID versus CAP and scale up versus scale out, with table versus JSON document structures; explore options like MySQL and MongoDB.

Explore software stacks such as lamp, mean, and merlin stacks, and learn how Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, React, and Express support web applications.

Differentiate frameworks from libraries, noting inversion of control and a framework’s opinionated flow, with examples like React JS, Angular JS, Express JS, Django, Flask, Laravel, Igniter, and Cake.

Distinguish server side from client side scripting languages and interpreted runtime, with examples like PHP, Python, Node.js, Ruby, and Perl. Explain how HTML, CSS, and JavaScript shape pages and interactivity.

Install and configure a complete lamp stack on ubuntu by setting up apache, MariaDB, and PHP, securing the database, and verifying the web server with the default Apache page.

Discover installing the lamp stack via the marketplace one-click apps during deployment, configuring root password and ssl, and choosing image and region. Verify with browser; post-deployment customization is not supported.

Log into server, verify Apache web root at /var/www/html, and create info.php to display PHP configuration. Test it in a browser to confirm PHP works, then delete the file.

Learn how to connect a PHP script to a MariaDB database and manage it with a dedicated non-root user. Create a database, grant privileges, and run insert and select queries.

Create a php script with nano in the web root to connect to the database and output records from the name list table, then view it in a browser.

Set up a graphical remote desktop on the Ubuntu server using Glitch client and xfce4, update packages, and access a gui with file explorer, browser, and terminal.

Learn foundational server security principles for hosting web apps, including Apache configuration, firewall setup, and network monitoring, and mitigate DDoS, directory traversal, and brute-force attacks.

Explore how firewalls defend servers by filtering packets, blocking threats, and enforcing http and ssh rules, including network and hosted firewall setups.

Configure a network firewall to control inbound and outbound traffic using vendor cloud console, create rules, and test blocking http on port 80 to protect the server.

Secure your server by changing the SSH port from 22 to a custom port and restricting access to trusted IP addresses with a network firewall.

Configure a strict inbound firewall policy by default dropping traffic and enabling essential rules for http, https, dns (tcp/udp 53), mysql/mariadb (port 3306), and icmp, then test and save changes.

Configure a hosted firewall on ubuntu with ufw, set default deny, allow ssh on a custom port, and permit http, https, dns, and db traffic, working alongside a network firewall.

Learn how vertical and horizontal scaling increase resources by upgrading a single instance or adding nodes to a cluster, with a front end load balancer routing health-checked traffic via DNS.

Demonstrate vertical scaling by resizing a vm from nano 1gb to node 4gb RAM, 2 CPUs, and 50gb storage, with disk resize and reboot. The next lecture covers horizontal scaling.

Learn to horizontally scale by using a node balancer, cloning servers, assigning private IP addresses, configuring HTTP health checks, and distributing traffic via round robin across two back-end nodes.

Learn how to swap public IPs between production and test VMs using the lymph node cloud console, verify with Apache index pages, and update host files to minimize downtime.

Learn to back up cloud instances with disk images and snapshots, compare manual and automated backups, and deploy new instances from saved images.

Create a custom disk image via the Node Cloud Manager, verify disk utilization with df -h to stay under six gigabytes, then deploy new nodes from the image.

Enable the backup service for an instance, take manual and automated snapshots with a three-slot rotation (daily, 2–7 days, 8–14 days), and understand the $5-per-month cost.

Terminate existing instances and delete unused volumes and images in your Linode account to prevent charges, then close the account if you won't use it further.

Develop hands-on skills to deploy, configure, and secure cloud virtual servers. Navigate the platform, spin up instances, and implement secure networking with non-root accounts and ssh firewalls.