An acceptable course to those who want to have an insight to cloud computing.

High quality lectures are brought down by a terrible programming assignment and unresponsiveness by staff regarding the assignment.

The professor has very good step-by-step explanations of the algorithms as well as detailed notes. Although it may seem abstract or unrelated, the content is very relevant to the state of cloud computing.

...now to the assignment... The assignment has unclear instructions, a bad C++ (not 11) code template that can even prevent you from running the code due to hard-coded buffer sizes and not actually using sizeof() properly, and a lot of the ugly code is in regions you are not allowed to modify. Expect to spend more time ( > 3x as much) trying to figure out the template than actually trying to apply the concepts of the course.

Too bad the final exercise is in C++, and not even in the modern C++ with smart pointers and other improvements. Makes you spend more time on the language issues than on the cloud computing algorithms.

Nice overview of all the cloud concepts but lags in difficulty level for beginners

这人说话总是爱绕弯，也可能是我英语太差，听他这些停顿，无数多的从句感觉很头疼。

The lectures are amazing, I love Indy, but I have three very big issues with this course as listed below. Otherwise, this is an overall good class!

(1) The design of the quizzes. It is really difficult for students without an ipad to work on some of the problems (with figures) because first, coursera does not support printing the quizzes using chrome, so most if not all of the graphs need to be hand-copied on paper, and second, the questions change across attempts, so they use different figures, and therefore students need to spend a whole lot of extra time on copying the figures and re-doing the calculations. If I were to redesign the course, I would have used a fixed set of figures, but different questions, for each attempt. (2) The design of the final project is very poor. A lot of the feedback can be seen in the forum. IMO, it requires a significant re-design. (3) The forums are not being monitored by the instructors, and not a lot of people take this class, so it's really difficult to get valuable feedback from the instructors and my peers.

I would not recommend this course. Weekly tests are too long and the programming assignment is absurdly difficult.

The course is very interesting as an introduction to Cloud Computing. You learn many concepts related to distributed systems and several protocols on them. Theory and practice are balanced, including practical exercises in the weekly tests and a programming assignment.

However, the weekly tests are very hard from week 3 on, having to spend 1-2 hours to finish them as you need paper to do some drawings. The programming assignment is very difficult, unfair and purposeless. The template is written in C++ and it is not very helpful. You spend 80% dealing with C++ issues rather than learning the protocol concepts. I think you get the whole idea of the protocols without having to spend more than 20 hours creating such a complicated program. Many people didn't complete the course just for not being able to finish the program.

The programming assignment is a disaster.

Thought it was a waste of my time- made it halfway and quit, Primarily because what is covered in the lectures doesnt give you enough answers to pass the homework quiz - you can ace the knowledge checks in the lecture and fail the homework miserably.

Also, the instructor to be a bit unfocused - he only read the slides. The homework it was maddening. Much of what was in the homework was never covered in the course. For example in Homework 3 there are 4 or 5 questions about Ternary trees in Gnutella which is NEVER mentioned in the lectures.

I thought this might be a useful course but it turned out to be highly theoretical focused on the details about things like detailed approaches to Peer to Peer (which might be useful in context but seemed to be better served in a Cloud Computing Theory class.

Overall it was a terrible course. The overly simplistic examples in the lectures didn't prepare you for the weekly quizes. The programming assignment was a huge waste of time dealing with poorly within C/C++ code, famish instructions and memory handling like it was the 90' and very little with cloud base algorithm or logic. I saw the same complains over and over for the last three years on the forums and that were for most of it ignored. Where is the professor? A very poor publicity for the University of Illinois

The course material is high level, which is perfect for an entry level course. The Part 1 programming assignment in C++ is non-realistic for a beginner. In the forums, some have recommend other courses of up to 40 hrs of C++ as a refresher or intro. I'm a non-programmer, but can code. Not at this level for an entry level course. Sadly, 1-star until the course can be updated with realistic goals and content for an entry level student looking to learn cloud.

This course was a time wasting struggle. The instructor is not available for any kind of help. The course lectures need to be in sync with what is being asked in the weekly quiz. Instructor really needs to be available for help.

No adecuate to get business oriented knowledge. All theoretical and academical teaching.

Assignment questions cannot be solved with the information given in the lectures.

A thorough conceptual overview of cloud computing, distributed systems and peer-to-peer systems and the way they function in failure-ridden circumstances. The course gives a holistic view of the various factors and considerations that go into the design and operation of large scale distributed systems involving thousand of discrete computers over an expansive and unreliable network. The course requires good knowledge of C++ in order to complete the programming assignment. The quizzes and homework are mildly challenging and require patience to carefully work out the problems but the programming assignment is the one that will take the largest time commitment and it helps to get started early with it.

The course is very well laid out. Prof. Gupta has a very clear voice and is easy to follow. The tests at the end of each chapter are non trivial and really ensure you understood the concepts thoroughly. The course is fairly old (2012?), for a rapidly developing field like cloud computing, I imagine several portions of the course are probably out of date. I suggest the relevant portions of the course be updated periodically. Even if the course is not entirely revised, at a minimum add an extra section highlighting the new changes.

The course teaches a lot of core concepts of distributed systems (clouds included). The content is well delivered and the homework reflects the material very well. The homework is appropriately tough.

There is an optional programming assignment for setting up a distributed network of nodes with failure detection. I learned a lot about gossip based information spreading while doing the exercise. That said, the assignment is not clearly explained and it is hard to get started.

Overall I did enjoy the course and learned a great deal.

The presentations are very good, some of the best I've seen in a video lecture series. With this in mind, there were lectures where I felt a bit more explanation would have helped me. For those I found additional external resources.

I enjoyed the programming assignment; but, the assignment uses too many different ways of storing the address. One consistent way should be chosen between the Node / Emulation Layer / Member, preferably a non-char packed approach (unless the address is always handled as a plain text string).

Great course overall, personally I've especially liked the programming assignment! It's not production quality code for sure, but it was fun to implement, although if you don't have C++ experience, then it can be difficult.

The homework quizzes were hard, especially in the final weeks, and required retrying multiple times at some points — but it's definitely worth it, since the difficulty helps with gaining better understanding.

The material is covered in depth and clearly, the content is very current while still covering the historic origins and the development of the current state fo the art. It comes with evaluations that are not aimed towards memorization, but rather towards understanding the subject. As a cherry on top, they allow you to take a verified certificate towards credit on the Masters degree.

Cloud computing course provides an overview of the concepts of distributed processing. The algorithms behind real world distributed applications are well explained. The video lectures and quiz questions on various distributed protocols provide insights into the working of these systems. Highly recommended. Thanks Prof. Indranil Gupta and the Coursera community!!

The course was quite enjoyable, I love the assignment part I wish it was in Java. Struggled with the C++ memory manipulation part of the algorithm which was nothing to do with the actual implementation, having not coded in C++ over a decade was reason for the struggle. Overall all quizzes and final assignment was both challenging and enjoyable.

Perfect! The professor explain concept clearly and easy to understand. The course cover the concept and the real product in industry, so you will not be boring. The programming assignment is interesting, and it's really a challenge for me as my poor C++ :( . It take me almost 12 hours to finish the programming assignment.

Excellent course. I'm looking forward to continuing in this specialization.

Do read the description of the course carefully before starting. It is not for beginners. However, if you can program in C or C++ and have a solid computer science background (Bachelor's degree or equivalent), this course will be quite easy.

Everything was really well explained, quizzes are hard as they need to be, but not impossible and the instructor has a really good personality.

The only "bad" thing was the programming assigment. It was really hard (but again, possible) and the specifications were poor.

In general, a five star course.