Teaching modern software engineering requires balancing authentic industry practices with accessibility for students. Cloud platforms like AWS and Azure are powerful but can be overly complex for educational contexts. To address this, we developed an internal Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) using the open-source Tsuru platform. This solution simplifies deployment, enabling students to focus on building and iterating on applications without the need for direct interaction with complex cloud infrastructure, and facilitates administration and access for instructors to support the learning experience.

This paper presents our experiences using this platform in software engineering courses. We discuss challenges, lessons learned, and practical advice for educators aiming to create similar solutions to support student learning.