Windows Azure for education
This article describes how any computer science teacher can use Windows Azure for free, for educational purposes, to conduct classes that include the practical work of students.
In our training center (I will tell you more about it some other time) we try to build work based on the minimum effort. Not all in our team work in the training center is the main, so the logic is obvious.
')
As you know, education (including higher education) in Russia does not keep pace with technology. If there is an exception from this rule, they only confirm the existence of the rule. What is the problem? The problem, of course, is complex and ambiguous, but that is its root.
Administration of computer classes in an educational institution is an extremely complex process. It is difficult because it often requires costs (admins do not always work for the buns). Consider the standard situation.
The computer class usually uses Windows XP (because a bunch of old software that is used in the educational process is compatible with it); it is good if users work without admin rights (which is not always the case when working with the old Sotf), otherwise some kind of harsh image system is usually used (that is, if the computer is broken by software, then it will be quickly rolled back).
And imagine that a new teacher wants to give a Linux course on the example of any popular distribution. What will he face?
There will be many problems. Even if we cross out the nagging admins about "Why do you need this," there will be enough problems supporting the second system, reinstalling it, and so on until the pulse is lost. Well, if the teacher himself is qualified enough, what if not?
We encountered a similar problem. We have Windows 7 in our classroom and did not want to produce a multiboot or install another hard disk (in our case, the form factor of the system unit does not allow it). Therefore, a thought about Windows Azure came to my mind.
What is Windows Azure good for education? Well, there is an opportunity to work with virtual machines (it is still in preview mode, ie, beta), which is well suited - we take and deploy any Linux image there, and work quietly for ourselves. If a student suddenly “crashes” the operating system (rm -rf / or makes a mistake in / etc / fstab), then the operating system is simply redeployed.
How to work? Well, at first they thought about a free demo account for three months, but the decision turned out to be different.
So what was wrong with the demo account? Well, in general, the problem was that not only a mobile phone number was needed for it to be checked (some of our students didn’t have a mobile phone, yes, it also happened), but also the credit card details from which they would write the dollar.
Not all students are holders of cards, and this is especially difficult when you are doing an elective, where anyone can come. It’s not a fact that a person will have a credit card with him that can be used to make payments via the Internet.
The problem was solved completely unexpectedly - at the summit dedicated to the launch of Windows 8 in Moscow, the guys from the Windows Azure team shared a story about academic access in Windows Azure - it is called Windows Azure Academic Pass. Just for teachers and students.
In the same place at the summit, I sent a request for this Academic Pass, received in response a letter "will be in 3-5 business days", and then the end of the year came and I was not sharply up to it :)
After the end of the New Year holidays, I remembered that 3-5 working days had somehow passed and wrote a second letter. An hour later, I had a long-awaited Academic Pass.
So what is the Academic Pass? This is an opportunity to use the service for 5 months (the semester usually lasts 4 months, the student stays for independent picking for 1 month).
2 virtual machines (Small)
35 GB of space
50,000,000 vault transactions
Two 1GB databases (Web Edition)
250,000 Service Bus Messages
750 hours Service Bus
8 GB incoming
8 GB outgoing
10 Shared websites
10 mobile services (Shared)
For education, it seems to me, the most it. Or rather, I will say otherwise - we had enough :)
Of course, not everything is as happy as I say - there are some problems. And I’ll tell you about them right away so that I don’t have to bang my head about them.
Students must have a live ID. And this is not always the case. Most likely, they do not have this Live ID and it was not intended. Therefore, it will have to register. But do not expect to do this at the very first lesson, since the registration limit is 3 accounts from the same IP address.
There are two ways out.
1. Students must register their Live ID from their mobile phone or from home, in advance. The bad thing is that at the crucial moment someone will forget the password and delay the lesson.
2. Register a pack of Live ID yourself - this is the most convenient. True, there are no tools for automated mass registration.
And the restriction of 3 Live ID per IP-address can be removed, you need to write in support. But this time, consider this.
Academic Pass activation takes some time. Those. sometimes it can happen within 15 minutes, and sometimes within a day. Therefore, the Academic Pass must be received in advance and distributed to students, or activated by yourself (also in advance).
Virtual machines (as a service) are still in preview mode, i.e. beta. This means that official support in case of problems will not help anything, but will be sent to the TechNet forums. Can something go wrong? Yes, I had an example - suddenly someone broke the repositories for Ubuntu (they have their own in Windows Azure). Technical support did not help, but replacing the repositories with standard ones from Canonical worked perfectly.
Well, the main question - how to get it? It's simple, you need a minimum of knowledge of the English language.
Go to www.windowsazurepass.com/?pageMode=Academic and fill in a simple questionnaire (I will give you an example of filling right away, better in English, of course).
In response, you will first receive a letter confirming receipt of the application, and then you will receive a letter with a Word document (Windows Azure Offer for Academic Institutions). Its essence is as follows: since Microsoft gives you a paid resource for free, then according to the laws of some countries this can be perceived as a bribe. Therefore, this letter will indicate the volume of services provided, their market value (based on Microsoft’s pricing on Windows Azure), and the need to explicitly agree that you want these services and that this is not a bribe.
This letter must be printed out, signed by the head of the educational institution or department (I also stamped for greater authenticity) and send a scan in response.
At this stage, you should receive an Excel file with promotional codes, which will be exactly as many as you indicated in step 1. Now you need to link them to your Live ID, with which you will log into Windows Azure. To do this, go to www.windowsazurepass.com, select a country, enter the code and click Submit. Next, the system will confirm the voucher is correct and ask to log in with the Live ID to bind.
After you log in with your Live ID, a small profile will open, in which you will need to specify your first and last name (they will automatically pull up with your Live ID), phone number (it can be the same for everyone), and the name of the educational institution.
Here the surprise is that if there are students with the coincidence of the name, surname and institute, the system will say that this can not be. I simply added 1 to the name in this form and it all worked.
Now you need to wait for the message from the Windows Azure team, and that is exactly the process from 3 to 4 steps can take from 15 minutes to a day. It is advisable to do this in advance.
You can log into Windows Azure with a Live ID and use a subscription.
Our goal was finally achieved - we had an elective course, and students had the opportunity to study for a few more months after elective.
I am sure that using Windows Azure in education will simplify the lives of many teachers - they no longer depend on what software they have in the computer lab. The very concept of a computer class is changing - now it’s just computers with access to the Internet, no more.
I would be glad if someone could highlight such a use of other cloud platforms - I think that Microsoft is not alone in this issue.
Introduction
In our training center (I will tell you more about it some other time) we try to build work based on the minimum effort. Not all in our team work in the training center is the main, so the logic is obvious.
')
Problem
As you know, education (including higher education) in Russia does not keep pace with technology. If there is an exception from this rule, they only confirm the existence of the rule. What is the problem? The problem, of course, is complex and ambiguous, but that is its root.
Administration of computer classes in an educational institution is an extremely complex process. It is difficult because it often requires costs (admins do not always work for the buns). Consider the standard situation.
The computer class usually uses Windows XP (because a bunch of old software that is used in the educational process is compatible with it); it is good if users work without admin rights (which is not always the case when working with the old Sotf), otherwise some kind of harsh image system is usually used (that is, if the computer is broken by software, then it will be quickly rolled back).
And imagine that a new teacher wants to give a Linux course on the example of any popular distribution. What will he face?
There will be many problems. Even if we cross out the nagging admins about "Why do you need this," there will be enough problems supporting the second system, reinstalling it, and so on until the pulse is lost. Well, if the teacher himself is qualified enough, what if not?
Returning to reality
We encountered a similar problem. We have Windows 7 in our classroom and did not want to produce a multiboot or install another hard disk (in our case, the form factor of the system unit does not allow it). Therefore, a thought about Windows Azure came to my mind.
Decision
What is Windows Azure good for education? Well, there is an opportunity to work with virtual machines (it is still in preview mode, ie, beta), which is well suited - we take and deploy any Linux image there, and work quietly for ourselves. If a student suddenly “crashes” the operating system (rm -rf / or makes a mistake in / etc / fstab), then the operating system is simply redeployed.
How to work? Well, at first they thought about a free demo account for three months, but the decision turned out to be different.
One more problem
So what was wrong with the demo account? Well, in general, the problem was that not only a mobile phone number was needed for it to be checked (some of our students didn’t have a mobile phone, yes, it also happened), but also the credit card details from which they would write the dollar.
Not all students are holders of cards, and this is especially difficult when you are doing an elective, where anyone can come. It’s not a fact that a person will have a credit card with him that can be used to make payments via the Internet.
The problem was solved completely unexpectedly - at the summit dedicated to the launch of Windows 8 in Moscow, the guys from the Windows Azure team shared a story about academic access in Windows Azure - it is called Windows Azure Academic Pass. Just for teachers and students.
Combat Inspection
In the same place at the summit, I sent a request for this Academic Pass, received in response a letter "will be in 3-5 business days", and then the end of the year came and I was not sharply up to it :)
After the end of the New Year holidays, I remembered that 3-5 working days had somehow passed and wrote a second letter. An hour later, I had a long-awaited Academic Pass.
What's inside?
So what is the Academic Pass? This is an opportunity to use the service for 5 months (the semester usually lasts 4 months, the student stays for independent picking for 1 month).
Windows Azure
2 virtual machines (Small)
35 GB of space
50,000,000 vault transactions
SQL Azure
Two 1GB databases (Web Edition)
250,000 Service Bus Messages
750 hours Service Bus
Traffic
8 GB incoming
8 GB outgoing
Hosted services
10 Shared websites
10 mobile services (Shared)
For education, it seems to me, the most it. Or rather, I will say otherwise - we had enough :)
A spoon of tar
Of course, not everything is as happy as I say - there are some problems. And I’ll tell you about them right away so that I don’t have to bang my head about them.
Problem one
Students must have a live ID. And this is not always the case. Most likely, they do not have this Live ID and it was not intended. Therefore, it will have to register. But do not expect to do this at the very first lesson, since the registration limit is 3 accounts from the same IP address.
There are two ways out.
1. Students must register their Live ID from their mobile phone or from home, in advance. The bad thing is that at the crucial moment someone will forget the password and delay the lesson.
2. Register a pack of Live ID yourself - this is the most convenient. True, there are no tools for automated mass registration.
And the restriction of 3 Live ID per IP-address can be removed, you need to write in support. But this time, consider this.
Problem two
Academic Pass activation takes some time. Those. sometimes it can happen within 15 minutes, and sometimes within a day. Therefore, the Academic Pass must be received in advance and distributed to students, or activated by yourself (also in advance).
Problem three
Virtual machines (as a service) are still in preview mode, i.e. beta. This means that official support in case of problems will not help anything, but will be sent to the TechNet forums. Can something go wrong? Yes, I had an example - suddenly someone broke the repositories for Ubuntu (they have their own in Windows Azure). Technical support did not help, but replacing the repositories with standard ones from Canonical worked perfectly.
Where to talk?
Well, the main question - how to get it? It's simple, you need a minimum of knowledge of the English language.
Step 1
Go to www.windowsazurepass.com/?pageMode=Academic and fill in a simple questionnaire (I will give you an example of filling right away, better in English, of course).
- Full Name: Ivan Ivanov
- Email: ivanov@mydomain.ru
- Country: Russia
- University: (here is the name of the school in English) MSU
- Course name: (what is the name of the course you want to read) Using Linux as Web-platform
- Course description: (course description, up to 4000 characters) A short course for beginners; primary goal - LAMP server.
- Course start date: (estimated course start date): 2013-03-01
- # of students: (number of students) 20
- Please note that this is not the number of Azure Pass issued, this is the number of course participants - it may differ from the number of Azure Pass!
- # of Passes Requested: (number of requested Azure Pass)
- Course URL: (website address with course, if any) mydomain.ru/mycourse
Step 2
In response, you will first receive a letter confirming receipt of the application, and then you will receive a letter with a Word document (Windows Azure Offer for Academic Institutions). Its essence is as follows: since Microsoft gives you a paid resource for free, then according to the laws of some countries this can be perceived as a bribe. Therefore, this letter will indicate the volume of services provided, their market value (based on Microsoft’s pricing on Windows Azure), and the need to explicitly agree that you want these services and that this is not a bribe.
This letter must be printed out, signed by the head of the educational institution or department (I also stamped for greater authenticity) and send a scan in response.
Step 3
At this stage, you should receive an Excel file with promotional codes, which will be exactly as many as you indicated in step 1. Now you need to link them to your Live ID, with which you will log into Windows Azure. To do this, go to www.windowsazurepass.com, select a country, enter the code and click Submit. Next, the system will confirm the voucher is correct and ask to log in with the Live ID to bind.
After you log in with your Live ID, a small profile will open, in which you will need to specify your first and last name (they will automatically pull up with your Live ID), phone number (it can be the same for everyone), and the name of the educational institution.
Here the surprise is that if there are students with the coincidence of the name, surname and institute, the system will say that this can not be. I simply added 1 to the name in this form and it all worked.
Step 4
Now you need to wait for the message from the Windows Azure team, and that is exactly the process from 3 to 4 steps can take from 15 minutes to a day. It is advisable to do this in advance.
Step 5
You can log into Windows Azure with a Live ID and use a subscription.
Summing up
Our goal was finally achieved - we had an elective course, and students had the opportunity to study for a few more months after elective.
I am sure that using Windows Azure in education will simplify the lives of many teachers - they no longer depend on what software they have in the computer lab. The very concept of a computer class is changing - now it’s just computers with access to the Internet, no more.
I would be glad if someone could highlight such a use of other cloud platforms - I think that Microsoft is not alone in this issue.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/172741/
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