The Cloud Computing Associate Degree at Santa Monica College is a program designed
to launch students into the forefront of the digital transformation era. As cloud
computing reshapes industries globally, our program equips you with the essential
skills and knowledge to thrive in this dynamic field. This program is your gateway
to understanding cloud technologies, preparing you for in-demand certifications, and
ultimately, a rewarding career in tech.
Program Overview
The Cloud Computing Associate Degree program is meticulously crafted to address the
growing demand for skilled cloud professionals. Through a comprehensive curriculum
of practical application, students will delve into the fundamentals of cloud computing,
network architecture, and security.
What You Will Learn
Design and Development: Gain the ability to design, develop, and manage scalable cloud solutions that align
with business objectives.
Current Industry Practices: Master the latest methodologies, tools, and processes utilized in the cloud computing
industry today.
Effective Communication: Enhance your ability to communicate complex cloud concepts clearly and effectively,
both orally and in writing, with tech and business professionals.
Team Collaboration: Develop the skills to work and collaborate effectively, whether as an individual
contributor or as part of a diverse team.
Your Pathway to Success
Our program serves as the foundation for those seeking to pursue cloud certifications
in Architect or Operations pathways. With the lower division courses providing the
necessary skills, students are well-prepared to navigate the exciting field of cloud
computing. Graduates of the program are positioned to design, develop, and implement
cloud-based solutions, meeting the technological needs of modern businesses and organizations.
Embark on a journey into cloud computing with our Associate of Science in Cloud Computing
program at Santa Monica College. This program covers essential topics like cloud technologies,
security, networking, and databases, setting the stage for a successful IT career.
Cloud Computing & IT Courses:
Our curriculum offers 20 targeted cloud computing and IT courses, providing hands-on
experience and the skills needed to excel in the dynamic IT industry. You'll learn
to the foundation of cloud platforms and optimize infrastructure for rewarding career
opportunities, plus Linux, Networking and Scripting.
This course introduces cloud computing which shifts information systems from on-premises
computing infrastructure to highly scalable internet architectures. The course provides
a solid foundation of cloud computing technologies and provides students with the
understanding required to effectively evaluate and assess the business and technical
benefits of cloud computing and cloud applications. Students analyze a variety of
cloud services (storage, servers and software applications) and cloud providers. Case
studies will be used to examine various industry cloud practices and applications.
The course also surveys cloud careers and discusses industry demand for cloud skills.
This course addresses cloud database management which supports a number of different
approaches for storing data. In the course, students define, operate and scale both
SQL and noSQL data storage solutions. This course considers factors that should be
balanced during the design of a storage solution. Principles are applied by performing
exercises using Amazon RDS and SQL to create and fill tables, retrieve and manipulate
data. Object-based APIs are used to serialize objects to Amazon DynamoDB for noSQL
solutions. Topics include automated backups, transaction logs, restoration and retention.
In this course, students will gain the skillset needed to implement Infrastructure
as a Service on the Azure cloud platform. The course will cover how to assess and
plan a cloud migration from on premises infrastructure to Azure. Students will learn
how to manage Azure resources, including deployment and configuration of virtual machines,
virtual networks, storage accounts, and Azure active directory services to manage
user and groups. Students will also learn how to manage a pool of nodes using batch
jobs.
In this course, students explore how cloud computing systems are built using a common
set of core technologies, algorithms, and design principles centered around distributed
systems. Students will use the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Management Console to provision,
load-balance and scale their applications using the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and
the AWS Elastic Beanstalk. The course discusses, from a developer perspective, the
most important reasons for using AWS and examines the underlying design principles
of scalable cloud applications.
In this course, students will gain the skillset needed to implement Infrastructure
as a Service on the Azure cloud platform. The course will cover how to assess and
plan a cloud migration from on premises infrastructure to Azure. Students will learn
how to manage Azure resources, including deployment and configuration of virtual machines,
virtual networks, storage accounts, and Azure active directory services to manage
user and groups. Students will also learn how to manage a pool of nodes using batch
jobs.
This course focuses on protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability
of computing systems and data. Students learn how Amazon Web Service (AWS) uses redundant
and layered controls, continuous validation and testing, and a substantial amount
of automation to ensure the underlying infrastructure is continuously monitored and
protected. Students examine the AWS Shared Responsibility Model and access the AWS
Management Console to learn more about security tools and features provided by the
AWS platform.
This course will cover how business decisions can be made into machine learning problems
for deeper business insight. We will cover the terms and concepts required to help
you learn and build a good foundational understanding of machine learning, artificial
intelligence and deep learning. You will learn the various Amazon Web Services Machine
Learning stack, Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning services, using application
use cases, frameworks and infrastructure that will allow us to build, train, and deploy
learning models at scale. Data is a vital part of machine learning, we will cover
how business data is stored, moved and processed throughout the machine learning pipeline.
This is a foundation course in the Linux operating system. Booting a Linux machine
is dissected, from BIOS firmware to authenticated user shell. Use of shell commands,
editors, programming tools, and GUIs are emphasized. Students learn to write shell
script programs and install applications using the open source software distribution
model. Unix process creation is detailed and a 20-line tutorial shell is developed.
Local administration tasks are covered, including user account management, backup,
task scheduling, logging, and clock time synchronization. As time allows recompilation
of the kernel from source code will be performed.
This course offers a broad introduction to networking concepts and analyzes different
network architectures. Introductory topics include network topologies, media and signaling,
protocols, addressing, and distributed networks. The varied ways to connect computers
are explored as are the resulting architectures. The course explores subnetting, both
physical and virtual and internetworks are constructed in the lab. Server programs
are introduced to demonstrate their signature socket-API structure. Specific real-world
services such as the apache web server, BIND name server, NFS and Samba file system
servers, DHCP address server, and others are discussed.
This introductory programming course teaches the fundamentals of computer programming
with the JavaScript language, the standard for client-side Web programming. It offers
a thorough treatment of programming concepts with programs that yield visible or audible
results in Web pages and Web-based applications. It shows how to use Core and Client-Side
JavaScript and the Document Object Model to build interactive, high-performance Web
sites.
This course introduces the Python programming language. Students will learn how to
write programs dealing in a wide range of application domains. Topics covered include
the language syntax, IDE, control flow, strings, I/O, classes and regular expressions.
Students may use either a PC (Windows) or a Mac (Linux) to complete their programming
assignments.
C# (read as C-Sharp) is a modern object-oriented language that enables programmers
to quickly build solutions for the Microsoft.NET platform. In this class, programmers
will learn to build C# components for use by Web and Windows-based applications. Students
will generate MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language) code and PE (Portable Executable)
files that utilize the services of the CLR (Common Language Runtime) which are all
part of the Microsoft.NET platform.
Java is a general-purpose language for writing platform-independent, robust, secure
programs. This course is intended for students who have completed a course in C programming.
Students will learn how to develop Java applications and applets. Topics covered include
the Java programming language, object-oriented programming (OOP), the Java applications
programming interface (API), and graphical user interfaces (GUI’s).
Server-side Web programming allows programmers to create content and process data
supplied in Web forms to create websites. These applications process data submitted
from Web forms and access backend databases to dynamically generate Web pages. Students
will design and write web pages using ASP 2.0 (Active Server Pages), Visual Studio.
NET and the C# programming language.
This course teaches how to design and write applications utilizing Ruby on Rails,
an open-source web application framework based on the Ruby programming language. In
this course, students will create applications that gather information from a web
server, query databases and render results.
Industry Cloud Computing and IT Certifications
Industry certifications in this degree program include AWS, Microsoft Azure and CompTIA. Earning certifications
before you’ve even finished your degree gives you the knowledge, skills, and credentials
that will immediately boost your résumé.
