1. Cloud basics

Question 1

List the benefits of cloud computing:

Answer 1

• Cost effective: pay-as-you-go or consumption-based pricing
• Scalable: Increase or decrease the resources & service based on demand or workload
• Elastic: capacity to add/remove resource to meet the current demand
• Reliable: offer data backup, disaster recovery, data replication and redundancy (in case of fault tolerant)
• Security: physical security (access to building) and digital security (access to your data)

Question 2

In terms of scalability, what horizontal scaling and vertical scaling refers to?

Answer 2

• Horizontal scaling (scaling out): add more VM to power your app
• Vertical scaling (scaling up): add more CPU, memory etc

Question 3

Cloud deployment models: why do you need to defined your cloud deployment model ?

Answer 3

It defines:
- where the data is stored
- how the customer interact with it
- where the applications run

Question 4

Cloud deployment models: what are the different cloud deployment models?

Answer 4

• Public: everything runs on your cloud provider’s hardware
• Private: cloud environment in your own data center
• Hybrid: combines both to run your app in the most appropriate location

Question 5

Cloud deployment models: what are the advantages and disadvantage of public cloud ?

Answer 5

• Advantage: high scalability, Pay-as-you-go, not responsible for maintenance or updates of the hardware, minimal technical knowledge to set up and use
• Disadvantage: hardware or services cannot manage them as you may want, some legal requirements which public clouds cannot meet

Question 6

Cloud deployment models: what are the advantages and disadvantage of private cloud ?

Answer 6

• Advantage: meet strict security/compliance/legal requirements
• Disadvantage: limits the agility - to scale you must buy,

Question 7

Cloud deployment models: what are the advantages and disadvantage of hybrid cloud ?

Answer 7

• Advantage: flexibility with what you run locally versus in the cloud
• Disadvantage: more expensive than selecting one deployment model

Question 8

Compute & Serverless & Storage: what type of services a cloud provider can provide ?

Answer 8

• Compute power: Linux/Windows servers, VM and containers
• Storage: files, databases, blobs
• Networking: secure connections between the cloud provider and your company/datacenter
• Analytics: visualizing telemetry and performance data

Question 9

Explain IaaS, PaaS and SaaS:

Answer 9

• Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): provide virtualization, server, storage, networking
• Platform as a service (PaaS): runtime, middleware, OS, virtualization, server, storage, networking
• Software as a service (SaaS): applications, data, runtime, middleware, OS, virtualization, server, storage, networking

Question 10

Cloud Compliance: what’s the connection between cloud provider and compliance?

Answer 10

Provider can help you comply with regulations and standards

Question 11

Cloud Compliance: what are the compliance offer provided by cloud provider ?

Answer 11

• CJIS = Criminal Justice Information Services
• CSA = Cloud Security Alliance
• GDPR = General Data Protection Regulation, european privacy law
• HIPAA = Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
• ISO/IEC 27018 = International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 27018
• MTCS = Multi-Tier Cloud Security (MTCS) Singapore
• SOC = Service Organization Controls
• NIST CSF = National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF)