BUKD-S 522 Information Technology Architecture

• 12 weeks
• 3.00 credits
• Prerequisite(s): BUKD-K520 (Previously BUKD-C 520)

Previously offered as BUKD-T 522.

With over $1 trillion up for grabs in the cloud, according to a 2021 McKinsey report, moving to cloud is increasingly becoming a strategic priority for businesses. Currently, most people think of the cloud as a technology platform. According to a 2020 Gartner report, this perspective will shift markedly by 2025 when cloud will not just be a technological approach for delivering applications but be the key driver of business innovation. Moving to cloud is also frustratingly difficult for many companies because their IT’s operating model remains based on legacy processes, methodologies, and technologies. This course examines the technical, strategic and business aspects of cloud computing. It commences with developing an understanding of cloud computing and how it is changing the pervasive business models. It then provides an in-depth overview of the technology infrastructure necessary to enable cloud computing, examine the characteristics of cloud computing and provide an overview of cloud service models.

Topics include: Fundamentals of network and application architecture, operating systems, and conventional data center technology which provides the technology architecture foundations required to understand the hardware infrastructure underlying cloud computing. Overview of system and infrastructure virtualization and building a cloud infrastructure. Examine cloud architecture in-depth – service models, deployment models, cloud decision framework; assess various cloud vendors. Understand the changing role of the IT organization as companies migrate to the cloud architecture.  Explore security issues related to deploying cloud based systems and services. Study the best practices of cloud deployment; assess risks; examine the governance, risk and compliance aspects of cloud computing. Explore future trends including software defined datacenters and warehouse scale datacenters. Hands-on experience with cloud technologies will be facilitated using the Amazon AWS platform and salesforce.com. The course will focus on the Amazon AWS architecture with complete hands-on exercises exploring AWS components and provisioning systems and services; it will also delve into the SaaS model by working with Salesforce.com.