CCT College Dublin Continuous Assessment

Programme Title: BSc in Information Technology

Cohort: Year 2, semester 1 / full-time
Module Title(s): Cloud Computing Fundamentals
Assignment Type: Individual

Weighting(s): 25% of CA total

CA 1 = 20% / CA 2 = 25% / 10 Weekly Module Quizzes = 5 % / Final Exam 50%
Assignment Title: Autoscaling, NLB and Resource Configuration in a cloud-based environment
Lecturer(s): Michael Weiss / [email protected]
Issue Date: Thursday 21st November 2024
Submission Sunday 8th December 2024 23:59
Deadline Date:
Late submissions will be accepted up to 5 calendar days after the deadline. All late
Late Submission submissions are subject to a penalty of 10% of the mark awarded.
Penalty: Submissions received more than 5 calendar days after the deadline above will not
be accepted and a mark of 0% will be awarded.
Method of
Moodle Upload one document in PDF format
Submission:
Instructions for Use a word processor to create your report. Use screen shots for evidence in your
Submission: report. All work should be in 1 PDF document uploaded to Moodle.
Feedback
Results posted in Moodle gradebook
Method:
Feedback Date: Feedback to students within two weeks following assignment due date

Learning Outcomes:
Please note this is not the assessment task. The task to be completed is detailed on the next page. This
CA will assess student attainment of the following minimum intended learning outcomes:

MLO 2 - Be aware of reliability and performance factors when developing

cloud infrastructures
(Linked to PLO 2 (Stage 1/2 SLO 2))

MLO 4 - Review current developments in the field of cloud computing, with an aim
to incorporating recent changes and developments
(Linked to PLO 5 (Stage 1/2 SLO 5))

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Attainment of the learning outcomes is the minimum requirement to achieve a Pass mark (40%). Higher are
awarded where there is evidence of achievement beyond this, in accordance with QQI Assessment and
Standards, Revised 2013, and summarised in the following table:
Percentage CCT QQI Description of Attainment
Range Performance Level 6, 7 & 8 awards Level 9 awards
Description
90% + Exceptional Achievement includes that required for a Achievement includes that required for
Pass and in most respects is significantly a Pass and in most respects is
80 – 89% Outstanding
and consistently beyond this significantly and consistently beyond
70 – 79% Excellent this
60 – 69% Very Good Achievement includes that required for a Achievement includes that required for
Pass and in many respects is significantly a Pass and in many respects is
beyond this significantly beyond this
50 – 59% Good Achievement includes that required for a Attains all the minimum intended
Pass and in some respects is significantly programme learning outcomes
beyond this
40 – 49% Acceptable Attains all the minimum intended
programme learning outcomes
35 – 39% Fail Nearly (but not quite) attains the relevant Nearly (but not quite) attains the
minimum intended learning outcomes relevant minimum intended learning
outcomes
0 – 34% Fail Does not attain some or all of the Does not attain some or all of the
minimum intended learning outcomes minimum intended learning outcomes

Please review the CCT Grade Descriptor available on the module Moodle page for a detailed description of
the standard of work required for each grade band.

The grading system in CCT is the QQI percentage grading system and is in common use in higher education
institutions in Ireland. The pass mark and thresholds for different grade bands may be different from what
you have experience of in the higher education system in other countries. CCT grades must be considered
in the context of the grading system in Irish higher education and not assumed to represent the same
standard the percentage grade reflects when awarded in an international context.

Assessment Task
Students are advised to review and adhere to the submission requirements documented after the
assessment task.

Note: you will need access to the AWS Cloud Platform to complete this assignment.
If for some reason you do not have access to this cloud platform, please inform your instructor immediately.

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A note about the use of Artificial Intelligence and this assignment:

You are not allowed the use of Artificial Intelligence to complete this assignment.

Each student is expected to do their own research and efforts.

Also, all research writing and examples MUST be in your own words!

Assignment Introduction

Scenario: You are doing an internship at a networking consultancy company called CompuTech. This week
you are an assistant to the Network Administrator. CompuTech has recently been providing network
consultancy services for DigiTech, a small audio electronics company that makes custom audio equipment
for musicians and recording studios. DigiTech’s Irish office is located near a small fishing village on the
southern coast of Ireland. Sales at Digitech have increased rapidly in the past year and Digitech has had
many customer complaints about the Digitech website frequently not being available. This problem is
caused by periods of high demand and Digitech needs a solution.

Part 1: Use of basic Cloud Services

CompuTech has recently helped Digitech to migrate their on-premises network operation to the AWS Cloud
Platform. The Chief Information Officer (CIO) of DigiTech is very concerned about the impact of high
demands on their Cloud-based workloads. You have been given the task of setting up a test version of the
Digitech website and setting up Autoscaling and Network Load Balancing, followed by monitoring and
stress testing of the test website and record your results in a report.

All your work should be in an attractive report format with screen captures to demonstrate your work.
Provide as much screen evidence as required to show completion of tasks but do not use more screen
shots than needed. Be sure to include with brief labels or descriptions of each task that you complete.

For each task, discuss any technical issues you encountered during this task.

Any research that is required should be in your own words (and do not use cut and paste) and must
include references. For this assignment all your virtual machines and storage units are to be created on
the AWS cloud platform (you have been provided with free access to AWS through the Learner Labs.

Note: You should not change any of the IP addresses of your VMs. AWS provides them on their network.

[During this project you will be creating several VM instances that will have web sites hosted on them.
You will be able to test that the web sites are working by using their external IP addresses].
Digitech would like you to set up a test version of the Digitech website and set up Autoscaling and Load
balancing, followed by monitoring and stress testing of the test website. Your manager has instructed you to
set all of this up and provide evidence for the Chief Information Officer of Digitech to review. There are also
a few other additional tasks which your supervisor at CompuTech needs you to complete.

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 Part 1: Create an AWS Bucket, upload items and demonstrate that you can view the bucket items.
Using your fabulous web programming expertise, create a one-page web site for DigiTech. If your
website does not contain images from Digitech, please add them. Be sure to write your name as
Webmaster at the bottom of the page and have your student number also displayed at the
bottom of the web page. Provide a description of what you learned from doing this task.

Part 2: Create an Auto Scaling Group inside the default AWS VPC. Create a scaling policy that has a
minimum of 2 instances, a desired value of 3 instances, and a maximum of 4 instances. Also show
how a technician can do basic Cloud monitoring of the servers. Provide a description of what you
learned from doing this task.

Part 3: Create an Amazon Linux VM instance named DigiZilla. Connect to this server using FileZilla.
Upload your DigiTech website to DigiZilla. Demonstrate that your website is available when you
copy and paste the external IP address of DigiZilla into the Web Browser. Hint: you will need to
modify the Linux permission on the DigiZilla Linux server in order to upload your website. Provide a
description of what you learned from doing this task.

Part 4: Create an Application Load Balancer inside the default AWS VPC. The Target Group should
have 5 Amazon Linux Servers (T2 micro). When creating this Load Balancer, in the User Data section
implement the ‘server bootstrapping’ process by using the script called ‘AWS Linux Script 2(deb-
hostname)’ that is provided on our Cloud Computing Moodle page. Provide a description of what
you learned from doing this task.

Challenge task #1: using your database skills, demonstrate that you can host an SQL database in the
cloud. You may use the AWS MySQL Database instance that is available on the AWS cloud (Platform
as a Service). Alternatively, you may create your own LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP)
and host your database on this instance (Infrastructure as a Service). You will only receive credit for
this task if you provide full details about your sources of references for how you learned how to
complete this task. Provide a description of what you learned from doing this task. Provide a
description of what you learned from doing this task.

Continued on the next page ->

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 Challenge task #2: Choose one of the AWS services from the following list one AWS service to
demonstrate. Include a full description of the service (including what its purpose is and how it
would be used). You will only receive credit for this task if you provide full details about your
sources of references for how you learned how to complete this task. Provide a description of what
you learned from doing this task.
List of items to choose from for challenge task 2:
Choose ONE of these challenge items to demonstrate.
• Set up the DigiTech web application on Elastic Beanstalk
• Demonstrate the use of the AWS Lambda service
• Demonstrate the use of the AWS Route 53 DNS service and the DigiTech website
• Demonstrate the use of the AWS Internet of Things (IoT) services
• You do not have to choose from the list above!
• Choose you own! Do some research and select one of the AWS services that are available
in the AWS console to demonstrate. Note, you must select one of the services that we have not
used already in this assignment. Try to choose a task is interesting to you and have some fun
with this part of the assignment!

Challenge task #3: Add the DigiTech website (with your name and student number) to a container
(this could be either Docker or Kubernetes). Provide details about your sources of references for
this task. You will only receive credit for this task if you provide full details about your sources of
references for how you learned how to complete this task. Provide a description of what you
learned from doing this task.

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Submission Requirements
All assessment submissions must meet the minimum requirements listed below. Failure to do so may have
implications for the mark awarded.
All assessment submissions must:
• Be submitted by the deadline date specified or be subject to late submission penalties
• Be submitted via Moodle upload, one document in PDF format
• Use Harvard Referencing when citing third party material
• Be the student’s own work.

Marks CA 2 Cloud Computing Fundamentals & Platforms / Marking Scheme Summary Marks
available earned
[0 to 10] Part 1: Create an AWS Bucket, upload a web site and demonstrate you can view the
website using the IP address of the Virtual Server
[0 to 15] Part 2: Create an Auto Scaling Group inside one of the public subnets of the default VPC.
Use basic monitoring to show the activity that results as the additional stress is applied to
the system.
[0 to 10] Part 3: Create an Amazon Linux VM instance named DigiZilla. Connect to this server using
FileZilla. Upload your DigiTech website to DigiZilla. Demonstrate that your website shows
when you copy and paste the external IP address of DigiZilla into the Web Browser.
[0 to 15] Part 4: Create an Application Load Balancer with 5 Linux Server instances on the Default
AWS VPC. Demonstrate that the Load Balancer is properly balancing the incoming load.
[0 to 15] Challenge task #1: Choose one of the AWS services from the list shown above and choose
one AWS service to demonstrate. Include a full description of the service (including what its
purpose is and how it would be used). You will only receive credit for this task if you
provide full details about your sources of references for how you learned how to complete
this task.
[0 to 15] Challenge task #2: using your database skills, demonstrate that you can host an SQL
database in the cloud. You may use the AWS MySQL Database instance that is available on
the AWS cloud (Platform as a Service) or you may create your own LAMP stack (Linux,
Apache, MySQL, and PHP) and host your database on this instance (Infrastructure as a
Service). You will only receive credit for this task if you provide full details about your
sources of references for how you learned how to complete this task.
[0 to 20] Challenge task #3: Add the DigiTech website (with your name and student number) to a
container (this could be either Docker or Kubernetes. You will only receive credit for this
task if you provide full details about your sources of references for how you learned how to
complete this task.

Additional Information
• Lecturers are not required to review draft assessment submissions. This may be offered at the
lecturer’s discretion.
• In accordance with CCT policy, feedback to learners may be provided in written, audio or video
format and can be provided as individual learner feedback, small group feedback or whole class
feedback.
• Results and feedback will only be issued when assessments have been marked and moderated
/ reviewed by a second examiner.

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 • Additional feedback may be provided as individual, small group or whole class feedback.
Lecturers are not obliged to respond to email requests for additional feedback where this is not
the specified process or to respond to further requests for feedback following the additional
feedback.
• Following receipt of feedback, where a student believes there has been an error in the or
feedback received, they should avail of the recheck and review process and should not attempt
to get a revised mark / feedback by directly approaching the lecturer. Lecturers are not
authorised to amend published outside of the recheck and review process or the Board of
Examiners process.
• Students are advised that disagreement with an academic judgement is not grounds for review.
• For additional support with academic writing and referencing students are advised to contact
the CCT Library Service or access the CCT Learning Space.
• For additional support with subject matter content students are advised to contact the CCT
Student Mentoring Academy
• For additional support with IT subject content, students are advised to access the CCT Support
Hub.

Your finished document is to be created in Word and must be submitted in a PDF file format.

You are reminded that College rules on plagiarism will apply to this assignment.
In other words: Do your own work… then you are really learning.

Check your spelling and grammar and ensure that the file reads as a properly constructed and well
formatted document.

Late submissions will be penalised at a rate of 10% per day or part day. After 5 days the work not will be
awarded any marks.

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