Well, it has been a long time since I posted. There are two reasons:
1. I took time off over Christmas as the workload was quite light and
2. I was removed from TM470 as they had booked too many students for the number of tutors that they had arranged.
In all of the confusion, I really didn't feel like writing a blog as I might have said a few things that I could later regret. I will cover the current course (TM352) first.
TM352
This is proving to be, quite worryingly, boring. I know that I have used a lot of the cloud stuff so most of this shouldn't be new to me and that is what has happened. Except that some of the concepts of IP addresses is quite difficult to grasp (or so blindingly obvious that I am missing something). I was quite worried about the first question in TMA02 as, like the questions in TMA01, it is a "holistic" question. This seems to mean that there is no correct answer but the tutor just wants to see that you have mentioned all of the important points and understood them. The question was to do with the benefits and risks of a company moving to the cloud.
In the end, of course, once I sat down to write, it all came out and I managed to get everything that I wanted to say within the word count limit. Question 2 requires us to create a fail over system in the cloud using Open Stack. I have run through the initial units and have seen how it all works. I just have to move on and get the fail over and load balancer configuration going. This is all described in the books and we only have to run through the process and take screen shots. Mind you, the system is so short of resources that it is causing issues for the students when connecting. The tutorial the other night was supposed to show us how it all worked but as major parts of the Open Stack stuff on the OU Servers didn't work, it was a bit of a waste of time. I sat through the tutorial until I couldn't stand any more and dropped it with 30 minutes to go
I am quite concerned about Question 3 as it is all abut doing a drawing of an Amazon AWS set up. That wouldn't be too bad except that they want IP addresses appended. I have to read the last unit of the block but I am not sure that it will give me everything that I need. Mind you, I am always in panic mode before I set down to do a TMA question so maybe I should just shut up?
TM470 - The Computing and IT Project
This is due to start on 1st February, when we should be assigned a tutor. I enrolled on 15th July last year and, on 18th November, the web site opened for discussions and advice regarding the proposed projects. It did open earlier but closed again. It seems that the team had a few problems because, there was everyone beavering away creating projects and discussing them on the forum when, completely out of the blue, me and about 250 other students were told that they had been removed from the course and would be re-enrolled for the course starting in February 2018!
I asked for a consultation with a "Senior Advisor". During the conversation, it came out that I am a) 72 (well in March); b) Very Arthritic and c) registered as a disabled student with the OU. On that basis she suggested that I would have a good case not to wait a year before taking this, my final module. I filled in the form, during which I mentioned that deferring when 35 years old for one year is a lot less risky than deferring for one year at 72! Sad, but true, especially with my arthritis getting worse by the month. Anyway, I put it in, not expecting too much and then, two days ago at 8:50 in the evening I heard that I had a confirmed place. Great. I know that it overlaps with TM352 for some months but I am retired so I can handle that. It just means that I can finish this year and not have to hang on until October 2018!
So, I am busy honing my project. I now have a tutor, although he hasn't contacted me yet, and all the forums open up on Saturday. The next few months are going to be great - coding mobile phones and designing a project!
Onwards with TM352 but a worrying time of TM470!
Well, it has been a long time since I posted. There are two reasons:
1. I took time off over Christmas as the workload was quite light and
2. I was removed from TM470 as they had booked too many students for the number of tutors that they had arranged.
In all of the confusion, I really didn't feel like writing a blog as I might have said a few things that I could later regret. I will cover the current course (TM352) first.
TM352
This is proving to be, quite worryingly, boring. I know that I have used a lot of the cloud stuff so most of this shouldn't be new to me and that is what has happened. Except that some of the concepts of IP addresses is quite difficult to grasp (or so blindingly obvious that I am missing something). I was quite worried about the first question in TMA02 as, like the questions in TMA01, it is a "holistic" question. This seems to mean that there is no correct answer but the tutor just wants to see that you have mentioned all of the important points and understood them. The question was to do with the benefits and risks of a company moving to the cloud.
In the end, of course, once I sat down to write, it all came out and I managed to get everything that I wanted to say within the word count limit. Question 2 requires us to create a fail over system in the cloud using Open Stack. I have run through the initial units and have seen how it all works. I just have to move on and get the fail over and load balancer configuration going. This is all described in the books and we only have to run through the process and take screen shots. Mind you, the system is so short of resources that it is causing issues for the students when connecting. The tutorial the other night was supposed to show us how it all worked but as major parts of the Open Stack stuff on the OU Servers didn't work, it was a bit of a waste of time. I sat through the tutorial until I couldn't stand any more and dropped it with 30 minutes to go
I am quite concerned about Question 3 as it is all abut doing a drawing of an Amazon AWS set up. That wouldn't be too bad except that they want IP addresses appended. I have to read the last unit of the block but I am not sure that it will give me everything that I need. Mind you, I am always in panic mode before I set down to do a TMA question so maybe I should just shut up?
TM470 - The Computing and IT Project
This is due to start on 1st February, when we should be assigned a tutor. I enrolled on 15th July last year and, on 18th November, the web site opened for discussions and advice regarding the proposed projects. It did open earlier but closed again. It seems that the team had a few problems because, there was everyone beavering away creating projects and discussing them on the forum when, completely out of the blue, me and about 250 other students were told that they had been removed from the course and would be re-enrolled for the course starting in February 2018!
I asked for a consultation with a "Senior Advisor". During the conversation, it came out that I am a) 72 (well in March); b) Very Arthritic and c) registered as a disabled student with the OU. On that basis she suggested that I would have a good case not to wait a year before taking this, my final module. I filled in the form, during which I mentioned that deferring when 35 years old for one year is a lot less risky than deferring for one year at 72! Sad, but true, especially with my arthritis getting worse by the month. Anyway, I put it in, not expecting too much and then, two days ago at 8:50 in the evening I heard that I had a confirmed place. Great. I know that it overlaps with TM352 for some months but I am retired so I can handle that. It just means that I can finish this year and not have to hang on until October 2018!
So, I am busy honing my project. I now have a tutor, although he hasn't contacted me yet, and all the forums open up on Saturday. The next few months are going to be great - coding mobile phones and designing a project!