FAQ

I cannot find a team member?

Please come to a lab, try to find people, or use the #need-teammate channel in Slack to find one. If you still cannot find a team, please let a TA know.

Will there be zoom calls/or equivalent in during labs?

There is one remote Zoom based lab, check the course home page for more info.

Where can I get help regarding the labs?

• The course has official slack: https://utdevopscourse.slack.com/
• Write to channel #general when you want help from anyone currently taking the course.
• Write to the group chat that you have been specifically assigned to.
• Write directly to the TAs whose group you have chosen.
• Use google to find answers to problems you have with the tasks or when debugging errors. LTAT.06.015's content and environment is not unique in any way compared to carrying out similar tasks in Amazon Cloud or Microsoft Azure - which means you can easily google for solutions.

My app/service/machine/x was working before, but it is broken now!?

You are responsible of the configuration of your machine and ensuring that the configuration is persistent.

The labs are way too long?!

The LTAT.06.015 is worth 6 course points. Meaning an average student is expected to spend roughly 156 hours per semester working on the course. This course has 16 weeks of new content. 16 * 1.5 = 24 hours spent in labs with TAs guidance, and 16 * 1.5 = 24h for lectures. There's also 3 hours planned for the exam. Meaning that the student is expected to spend 106 hours working on the course independently. Which means that per lab, the student is expected to spend on average 6.6 hours doing individual work.

When will new lab content be released?

Lab content will be released on Thursdays for the following week.

Where can I find the labs?

Here.

How many labs will there be?

The course will contain 12 new labs, which are spread across 16 weeks. There's also 4 demonstration weeks, called checkpoints, on week 4, 8, 12, 16.

The course is 16 weeks long and only 12 weeks of work?

Every fourth week is a check-up week. Where TAs will evaluate team's performance in the class room and over zoom.

This course does not have a prerequisite course? There should be some linux fundamentals stuff?

This course does not have a mandatory prerequisite course. University of Tartu System Administration course does serve as a nice preparation for this course.

The TA left abruptly when the lab ended?

TAs are available on Slack during the specified lab times. After the lab ends they are not obliged to stay available.

The TAs give very shallow or not specific enough answers to my questions.

The TAs are here to guide you, to point to towards solutions, but they are not obliged to do your work for you. They try and guide you towards figuring out the solution yourself. Utilize slack and google to your heart's content. Do not take this as you should not ask for help, most definitely do ask for help. If one TA does not respond ask from another.

Is attending the labs mandatory?

No. Only attending the checkpoint at your allocated time is mandatory, and will be graded. Checkpoints are on weeks 4, 8, 12, 16.

When is the deadline for the labs?

For every phase, during the checkpoint.

Will there be any intermediate tests of any sorts?

Yes. Every fourth week, the checkpoints.

Still have questions about the course's administrative side?

Direct message your lab supervisor.