Cloud Solutions Architecture

A practitioner programme in cloud architecture written from the decisions architects are actually judged on: failure domains, identity, choosing compute and storage, observability, and cost. Vendor-neutral in principle, with the naming differences between the major providers explained as you go.

10 weeks 55 guided hours Intermediate

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No account needed to buy. Pay with your card and we create your student account from the email you enter, with this programme ready inside it for twelve months.

Cloud Solutions Architecture course artwork

What you will achieve

Design across regions and availability zones for a stated recovery objective
Apply least privilege to identity, secrets and network boundaries
Choose between virtual machines, containers and serverless with reasons you can defend
Select data stores that match the access pattern rather than the fashion
Build observability and a cost model into the design rather than after it

Entry guidance

— Working knowledge of one cloud console
— Basic networking and Linux familiarity

Original Mai Studies learning material. This is a professional completion programme, not a regulated qualification or university accreditation.

Programme syllabus

3 applied modules

Lessons: 6
Assessed tasks: 3
Practice questions: 36
Timed mock papers: 2

Foundations architects are judged on

Failure domains and identity - the two things reviewers always test.

2 lessons · 12 practice questions · 1 assessed task

1. Regions, zones and designing for failure21 min study · 3 learning objectives · practical activity
Recovery objectives first, architecture second.
2. Identity, least privilege and secrets21 min study · 3 learning objectives · practical activity
The control plane is the real perimeter.

Resilience and access design — marked out of 100, pass at 80%

Designing the workload

Compute and data choices, made for the access pattern rather than the trend.

2 lessons · 12 practice questions · 1 assessed task

1. Virtual machines, containers and serverless21 min study · 3 learning objectives · practical activity
A decision framework instead of a preference.
2. Choosing the right data store21 min study · 3 learning objectives · practical activity
Access pattern first, product name second.

Workload design with justified trade-offs — marked out of 100, pass at 80%

Operating and paying for it

Observability, incidents and the cost architecture nobody designs until it hurts.

2 lessons · 12 practice questions · 1 assessed task

1. Observability and incident readiness21 min study · 3 learning objectives · practical activity
Know it broke before the customer tells you.
2. Cost architecture and rightsizing21 min study · 3 learning objectives · practical activity
Design the bill deliberately rather than discovering it.

Operations and cost plan — marked out of 100, pass at 80%

Timed mock papers

Cloud Solutions Architecture: timed mock paper 1 — 180 minutes, 30 objective questions plus written and computational tasks
Cloud Solutions Architecture: timed mock paper 2 — 180 minutes, 30 objective questions plus written and computational tasks

Lesson pages, assessed tasks and mock papers open the moment you join this programme. Teaching material is studied online; the notes you write are yours to download.

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