Skip to content

Week 1: Introduction to the Cloud

Week 1 will focus on introducing core cloud concepts and getting started using Azure. Here we will focus on answer questions about why cloud computing is useful (e.g., if you have 5TB of data, you can't bring the data to you, you want to bring yourself to the data). Also, in Python 100 we haven't taught them how to connect to remote servers via SSH and code, so this is a great opportunity to teach these skills that are taken for granted in industry. (Tom Arns will help with this dimension). The main focus this week will be getting cloud muscle memory: connecting to the portal, using the cli and VS Code with SSH and the portal.

Focus

  • Introduction to core cloud concepts (compute, storage, etc etc)
  • Understand when and when not to use cloud and how to estimate cloud cost
  • Learn the difference between Integrated Services (Snowflake/Databricks) and platform providers like AWS and Azure.
  • Overview of Azure as a platform
  • Using the Azure command line to interact with cloud resources

Hands-On Activities

  • Log into the Azure Portal
  • Open and configure a cloud shell environment
  • Run Python code via the Azure CLI (use VS Code SSH)
  • Estimate cost of a few simple use case with Azure cost calculator
  • Create a Databricks Notebook and run simple compute

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this week, students will be able to:

  • Describe fundamental cloud concepts in a platform-agnostic way: compute, storage, networking
  • Navigate the Azure portal confidently
  • Know how to estimate cloud cost
  • Use the Azure Command Line Interface (CLI) to:
  • Authenticate using shared credentials
  • Deploy and run simple Python modules
  • Inspect and manage basic resources and estimate cost
  • Understand differences between Azure/AWS and Databricks/Snowflake

Resources

Instructor Notes

Encourage students to treat this week as orientation — they will likely feel a bit overwhelmed the cloud is basically a fractal structure, they aren't expected to learn it all. None of us know it all. We are planning to provide a curated guide that focuses on a key subset of topics.

  • Ensure all students have access to the shared credentials before the session.
  • Monitor resource (test this multiple times before running with students).
  • Find link to classic reddit posts where people have spent 20k in one night by accident :D