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OSL840 Prep

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== Prerequisite skills ==
There's much to learn in OPS345OSL640, and it's the third course in the OPS stream, so we're assuming you learned some basics in ULI101OSL640/OPS245OSL740. As a minimum, you should be comfortable with:
* Using a Linux desktop as a workstation
* Using the terminal for various tasks, including:
* '''AWS'''. Available to nearly anyone who has a credit card. All the services are available and you pay for what you use. Because of the potential for huge bills you might get from AWS - we're not using it directly.
* The '''AWS free tier'''. It keeps changing but often it still requires a credit card to sign up and though you get some initial free credits: you risk adding up charges you simply didn't expect. We're not going to use it.
* '''AWS Educate'''. This was Amazon's first attempt at building an infrastructure specifically for students. It has been deprecated in favour of AWS Academy, but you may find references to it as you look for answers to your questions. We have never used it for OPS345OSL840.
* '''AWS Academy'''. This is what we're going to be using.
You should automatically get an email from notifications@instructure.com once the course begins. That will have a link you'll need to follow to create your free AWS Academy account and enroll in the Learner Lab for this course. That comes with a 100$ credit which will be plenty enough for OPS345 OSL840 unless you're reckless with your usage.
That will give you access to most AWS services, though it has some severe limitations. For example you can only create VMs with Amazon Linux, and you can't see what you spent your credits on. But it's plenty good enough for this course. We're only getting an overview of AWS, there is no time in one semester to do both an introduction and a deep dive.
Often times internet service users make a ridiculous assumption that "if it's on the internet, it must be free". Nothing in life is free. As a minimum you're paying for a service you received indirectly. Search engines show you ads - which affect you whether you realise it or not. Video and audio providers brainwash you with barrages of messages from sponsors. Amazon has to compete with Microsoft's Azure and many other technology stacks, so they're paying to encourage more engineers to learn/use AWS, which will bring them more clients in the long term.
Seneca does not provide ''any'' AWS credits. Amazon does. Which means you're responsible for using those credits appropriately, and if you waste them: you'll have to find some other way to do the required labs in OPS345OSL840.
We'll talk more about AWS costs in the upcoming Lab 1.
= Workstation setup =
You will need a Linux workstation for your work in this course. If you already have one you like and are used to: that's great, go ahead and use it (VMs from OPS245 OSL740 don't count). If you don't have one: you need to set it up this week, so that it's ready for next week's Lab 1.
The distribution you use doesn't matter much. The screenshots in the wiki are from a professor's Linux Mint machine. Linux mint is a friendly desktop most people don't have trouble with, so if you don't have your own preference: you might as well use that. You can either:
# Install it in a VMware Workstation virtual machine.
The disk space requirements are much lower in OPS345 OSL840 compared to OPS245OSL740, since you'll only need one VM and not much data on it. 50GB will be more than enough for the entire virtual drive.
Go ahead and set that up now. Download the ISO file for the latest Cinnamon edition from a mirror [https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php here]. No special setup is required for storage configuration. Do use a username which is the same as your myseneca ID. That will make your life easier in the labs.
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