The spotlight is on Jashvir Bir, The University of the South Pacific, Fiji

The University of the South Pacific (USP) is the premier institution of higher learning for the Pacific, and one of only two regional universities in the world. It is jointly owned and governed by twelve member countries: Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. The university has campuses in all member countries with Fiji, the hub, having three campuses. USP offers over 150 degree and post graduate programs that are recognized in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom and is proud to be ranked as one of the top 50 universities in the Oceania region.

USP has six schools, of which the School of Information Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics is the largest. Its Computing Science and Information Systems (CS/IS) department teaches courses in CS/IS, computer networks and security, software engineering, and cybersecurity.

Jashvir Bir, Lecturer and Course Coordinator in CS/IS, specializes in networking, operating systems, software engineering, data and information security, and IT project management. In 2023, he launched a cloud computing course based on the Oracle Academy Cloud Program. Bir is a graduate of USP, with a master’s degree in Information Systems and a postgraduate diploma in Computing Science & Information Systems with relevant industry-based skills.

His goal is to prepare students from the Pacific region for careers in cloud computing, networking and security.

Oracle Academy: How did you get to work with the Oracle Academy Cloud Program?

Jashvir Bir: It’s quite amusing really. I was starting up the cloud computing course and looking at the various options. I registered with some cloud providers; however, I faced a few difficulties — a hosted service website in Sydney was down, and stayed down for a week. Well, that was hardly confidence-inspiring in terms of cloud availability!

At that same time, a colleague of mine informed me that our university was an Oracle Academy member and that we could have free access to Oracle Cloud resources. That clinched it, and today we use the educational credits Oracle Academy makes available through the Oracle Cloud Free Tier.

Oracle Academy: How do you conduct your cloud computing course?

Jashvir Bir: I teach two units, Cloud Computing and Computer & Network Security. Each unit has 52 students, so that’s 104 young people from 12 countries of the South Pacific who learned last semester to explore and utilize Oracle Cloud.

First, I run through some tutorials, and then we build web instances and get to know concepts such as multi-tenancy, SLAs, cloud security, multifactor authentication, resource scaling, different cloud service models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and hosting of web services.

Oracle Academy: In what way do you make use of tutorials?

Jashvir Bir: What I did, before moving onto hands-on exercises, was to adapt the Oracle Academy resources in such a way that the students themselves can explain the concepts. My modus operandi was first to go through the entire curriculum to understand Oracle Cloud. Then, based on the teaching materials provided, I made videos using screen capture software to record the Oracle screens and added my voiceover.

These I shared with the students. So, they got my blended screen and audio recordings of the cloud fundamentals and explanation of the course materials. Next step was to say to them: ‘your turn!’ Consequently, they did the same as me, which was a good exercise and also prevented any plagiarism using ChatGTP!

Oracle Academy: And how have you delivered the Oracle Academy Cloud Program?

Jashvir Bir: I introduced Oracle Cloud computing by dint of comparison, explaining how companies came to see the advantages of cloud versus client-server architecture. During the first six weeks, the students installed Oracle on premises, so to speak, using the Oracle VirtualBox we already had in the laboratory. In the second half of the course, we switched to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and went through the same set of materials, but this time going directly to the cloud.

Specifically, the first half of the course focused on using Oracle VirtualBox for virtualization, providing labs and workshops, installing multiple operating systems and optimizing resources. This gave them strong fundamentals, but right away they noticed that as they moved from lab to lab during the class, they could not take their work with them.

The next half of the course introduced OCI to create compute instances of Oracle Linux and Ubuntu, and the students accessed them through collaboration tools such as Putty, Gitbash, and PowerShell terminals. Naturally, at all times they could simply log into their Oracle Cloud Free Tier account from wherever they were and continue working. If they had to change labs, they could just log in and complete the task. Even if the power goes off, they are always online — they have the power of data everywhere.

And in the last few weeks they spun up some amazing applications and websites, which they have displayed in video showcases.

Oracle Academy: Can you give examples?

Jashvir Bir: Sure. As part of their course work, I asked them to use OCI instances to set up a webpage on WordPress and record a video demonstrating the steps they had taken. I allowed them to upload them to YouTube and share the links.

For example, a couple of students used the Cloud resources first to create a static website on an Oracle Cloud Apache Web Server, and secondly to deploy a WordPress blog on an Oracle Cloud instance.

For the simple web service, they used an Oracle Ubuntu instance accessed using Putty, configured a graphical user interface, set up an Apache server, and tested the page on a Firefox browser and on a local machine. The result was a simple static Hello Cloud web page.

Then they moved to something more advanced, which was a WordPress website depicting the Fiji Rugby team — which, by the way, is more than just a sport; it’s a way of life for us. The website contains four pages, google maps, an image gallery, videos, and social media links.

In this exercise, they installed and configured PHP, Apache, and MySQL as the database, set up the WordPress frontend and backend interfaces, and finally spun up a load balancer for distributing traffic between the two instances, the static page and the WordPress website. The last step was to test the load balancer by accessing it from different browsers, and then the website was up and running. The exercise was an excellent use of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, hosted from the Oracle Australia East cloud region located in Sydney.

Oracle Academy: Have you considered introducing your students to Oracle professional certification exams?

Jashvir Bir: Indeed, it’s on my radar screen and for two main reasons. Firstly, my twin bachelor’s programs for teaching cloud computing, Networks and Security and Software Engineering, are accredited courses under the Australian Computing Society (ACS). In fact, the University of the South Pacific is one of only two universities outside of the Australian mainland to be ACS accredited.

ACS only awards accreditation to organizations that can produce graduates with the skills and knowledge required by Australia’s tech industry. So, already we are on the right track. But having Oracle professional certifications would make our graduates even more valuable.

Secondly, we work in consultation with industry organizations. Companies, whether in Australia and New Zealand or in the South Pacific, are looking for students with cloud computing skills. These were mainly supplied by our other cloud providers. Now they know that we are concentrating on Oracle. This is good news to them.

Final year students must carry out an 18-month industry experience project, where in the last six months they meet requirements set directly by industry customers from Australia and New Zealand. For example, companies delineate software to be developed, tested and deployed using Oracle Cloud or other clouds. USP coordinates the grading with these industry players based on customer preferences and on our School of IT criteria. Overall, USP is heavily focused on industry requirements in all its schools and departments.

Oracle Academy: What is the impact for students graduating with Oracle Cloud skills?

Jashvir Bir: One impact is as mentioned above: They are highly liable to get employed by the companies they dealt with during the industry experience projects. But more generally, these students go back home to the dozen countries in our region, feeling comfortable with Oracle technologies. That’s a win for us and I believe it’s a win for Oracle. They have understood the power of cloud and are eager to unleash their skills in the South Pacific!

Oracle Academy: Great job! And what interests have you outside of the teaching sphere?

Jashvir Bir: I like to keep fit. I play soccer and my team trains twice a week. We are going to New Zealand this year to compete in an over-35s international tournament. We reached the final last year.

Thank you, Jashvir Bir, for your passion for Oracle Academy and for preparing your students to make a positive impact.