Chapter 5 Maintaining Cloud Operations

Question 1

Sam wants to create a full backup on Sunday and then during the week to backup only the files that have been modified since Sunday. As a Cloud+ consultant, what type of backup would you suggest?

Answer 1

Differential

A differential backup uses the latest full backup as a source data set, and with each additional sequential backup operation the differential backup will identify and back up only the data that has been modified since the last backup was performed. This allows for an efficient and significantly smaller backup operation.

Chapter 5 (page 169)

Question 2

Hank is asking about installing vendor software on his web server to fix a known bug in the application. What type of fix is this?

Answer 2

Patch

A patch is an update that fixes a known bug or issues. The patch is a piece of software that is intended to update an application, operating system, or any other software-based system to fix or improve its operations.

Chapter 5 (page 162)

Question 3

Lori wants to back up a virtual machine image to use as a template for creating more VMs. What type of backup would you suggest she perform?

Answer 3

Clone

Cloning creates an identical copy of the data that may be a storage volume, a filesystem or the logical unit number (LUN) on a storage area network (SAN).
Advantages of cloning include a complete image being available for restoration. Storage efficiency is very low as a clone takes as much storage space as the original source since all of the data is copied in the clone operation.

Chapter 5 (page 168)

Question 4

Randy wants to make a backup of a public cloud machine image before applying updates to the operating systems so he can roll back if needed. What type of backup would you suggest he implement?

Answer 4

Snapshot

Storage snapshots are a point-in-time copy of storage volume or image that can be used as a backup to shorten recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs).

The snapshot is a file-based image of the current state of a VM, including the complete operating systems and all applications that are stored on it.

Chapter 5 (page 164)

Question 5

Mindy works on her company’s private cloud operations center. She knows that there are a number of virtual server upgrades taking place and notices on the network health status dashboards that there are a number of servers with alarms. What are two common causes for the alarms?

Answer 5

Shutdowns and restarts

The restart process can be monitored through the management systems and dashboards that are offered by the cloud provider.

A shutdown may be desired if you choose to retain the VM and its applications but do not need it to be active.

Chapter 5 (page 166)

Question 6

What is a quick release of software to fix a critical issue called?

Answer 6

Hotfix

A hotfix is a software update type that is intended to fix an immediate and specific problem with a quick release procedure. A hotfix may be a customer-specific and not released to the public or available to everyone. Many times a hotfix is a bug fix that has been made quickly and did not follow the normal quality assurance or formal release procedure since the intention is for a rapid deployment.

Chapter 5 (page 162)

Question 7

Debbie has submitted a change management request to update her data analysis application. She plans on implementing an update that includes new features and a rollup of a bug fixes. What type of upgrade is Debbie requesting?

Answer 7

Version

A version update is the process of replacing a software product with a newer version of the same product. Version updates can add new features, bring the system up-to-date, and provide a rollup of all previous patches to improve the product. Upgrading entails replacing the current, older version of the same product with a newer version.

Chapter 5 (page 162)

Question 8

Which cloud-based system abstracts and hides much of the modern cloud systems and also reduces operational errors by executing tested cloud systems, scripts, workflows, or runbooks to make sure the system are configured correctly?

Answer 8

Orchestration

Orchestration systems play a critical role in cloud operations that goes beyond just security to many other tasks such as the day-to-day maintenance of operations.
Orchestration systems coordinate and process tasks, functions, and workflows of cloud operations without the need for human intervention. Orchestration is often described as a service-oriented architecture, automated provisioning, converged infrastructure, or dynamic data center.

Chapter 5 (page 164)

Question 9

Trevor asked you to recommend a server deployment model that features tightly coupled computers that allow for software patching without incurring downtime. What type of server deployment would you recommend?

Answer 9

Cluster

A cluster is a group of servers operating in tandem that often appear as a single larger system. Clusters can be managed as a single larger system instead of many small servers grouped together. This allows for central point of management that simplifies operation. You can manage a cluster as a complete system and not be concerned with all of the individual systems.
The devices in the cluster work together to support a high availability platform for applications and services. If a node in a cluster were to fail, other nodes would pick up the operations and continue without any downtime.

Chapter 5 (page 160)

Question 10

Name the backup operation that is based on the change of the source data since the last backup was performed?

Answer 10

Incremental

Incremental backups perform operations based on the change of the source data since the last incremental backup was performed. Incremental backups can be run, for example on a nightly basis and capture the changes that were made since the previous backup was run the night before. This allows for an efficient backup operation since only the changes in the past 24 hours are stored on the backup media. Incremental backups are much less time-and resource-consuming than a full backup and are used to complement them.

Chapter 5 (page 169)

Question 11

The ____ ____ model is a software deployment methodology that uses two configurations for production that are identical to each other.

Answer 11

Blue-green

These deployments can alternate between each other with one being active and the other being inactive. One of the two identical environments is referred to as blue, and the other is called green. Each can handle the complete workload without assistance from the other. This allows you to implement, test, and validate software updates to the inactive side. Once this operation has been performed and you feel comfortable with the updates, you can make it active. The previously active side will now be inactive, and you have to perform the same updates on it. Blue and green are arbitrary names that are merely used to differentiate between two sides.

Chapter 5 (page 159) Patching Methodologies

Question 12

A constant delivery of software updates or patches to operating systems or applications is referred to as a ____ ____.

Answer 12

Rolling Updates

Rolling updates is the constant delivery of software updates or patches to operating systems or applications. Other terms that are synonymous with rolling updates are rolling releases and continuous delivery. Rolling updates are generally related to small but frequent updates.

Chapter 5 (page 159)

Question 13

If you experience undesirable results after deploying a patch to a fleet of VMs, you may be required to perform a ____ to withdraw the patch from operations.

Answer 13

Rollback

A rollback is the process of returning software to a previous state. If a software update failed, did not correct the issue as expected, or introduced new issues that require you to downgrade the system to its original state, then a rollback should be performed.

Chapter 5 (page 162)

Question 14

____ are used to restore existing virtual server, and ____ is when you take a VM and use it to create a new and separate VM.

Answer 14

Snapshot cloning

A snapshot creates an instant-in-time image for rollbacks or backups. The snapshot is a file-based image of the current state of a VM, including the complete operating systems and all applications that are stored on it.

Cloning is similar to snapshots but has a different use in managing cloud deployments. With a snapshot, an exact copy is made of running VM. Cloning is different in that it takes the master image and clones it to be used as another separate and independent VM.

Chapter 5 (page 164)

Question 15

The endpoint or storage system where the backup data is to be stored is commonly referred to as the ____ ____.

Answer 15

Backup target

Backup target is defined as the endpoint or storage system where the backup data is to be stored. Backup targets can store data as a live copy to be used by your applications like with replicas or can store data as a local storage array that can perform the functions of a backup data store; alternatively, they can store data as a secondary system that can support a copy of your live data.

Chapter 5 (page 169)

Question 16

____ are backup copies of data that can be stored either locally or remotely and act as an alternative data store from you main production operations.

Answer 16

Replicas

For example, with many popular databases, you can create one or more read replicas that can be stored in local or remote data centers. These replicas are updated in real time from the master, and the databases can access them instead of the master replica. This allows for the database to scale and operate at very high read rates.

Chapter 5 (page 170)

Question 17

A ____ is a software update type that is intended to fix an immediate and specific problem with a quick release procedure.

Answer 17

Hotfix

Because of the urgent nature of supplying a bug fix to a critical issue, a hotfix has a higher risk factor than other approaches to patching software. Testing the patch is usually quick using a subset of the full QA test suites. Installing a hotfix may introduce new and unknown issues into your environment.
The risk of installing a hotfix to correct a bug and introducing new problems must be weighed against not taking action and living with the bug until all testing has been completed.

Chapter 5 (page 162)

Question 18

A ____ ____ uses the latest full backup as a source data set, and with each additional sequential backup operation, this type of backup will identify only the data that has been modified since the last backup was performed for backup and not the complete backup set. This allows for an efficient and significantly smaller backup operation.

Answer 18

Differential backup

For example, let’s assume you perform a full backup on Sunday and then do daily differential backups for the rest of the week. The first differential backup that runs on Monday will include the file changes made since the time of the full backup that was performed on Sunday. The next differential backup that runs on Tuesday will contain the changed data from both Monday and Tuesday and so forth.

Chapter 5 (page 169)

Question 19

When installing patches on a server and knowing that the server will be down and unresponsive for a period of time, it is important to disable ____ ____ when performing maintenance.

Answer 19

System Alerts

Alerting allows a virtual server to send management data to monitoring systems informing them of either predefined or custom alerts. Alerts can be in the form of traps, logging information, or data generated by management software running on the server.
It is best practice to disable alerts prior to taking a server offline for maintenance.

Chapter 5 (page 166)

Question 20

A ___ ____ is the time available for the backup operation to run while the target storage system is either offline or lightly used

Answer 20

backup window

The backup application allow you to define when the backup operation takes place and what type of backup is to be performed. The schedule and backup window must allow for enough time for the backup operation to complete and take into account the volume of data and the time to transport the data across a network and to write the data to storage media.

Chapter 5 (page 171)

Question 21

What backup type offers the advantage of a complete and up-to-date copy of your data in one operation?

A. Full
B. Differential
C. Incremental
D. Online

Answer 21

Full

A full backups offer the advantage of a complete and up-to-date copy of your data in one operation. They have the disadvantage of taking a long time to perform because all the data in a storage system must be copied instead of just the modified data from the last backup. Full backups also require a significant amount of storage capacity since the complete data set is copied in the operation.

Chapter 5 (page 168)

Question 22

When applying a series of patches to your fleet of middleware servers in the cloud, you are concerned about the monitoring systems generating invalid alerts. What part of the server maintenance process would cause this? (Choose two.)

A. API polling
B. Rolling upgrades
C. Shutdown
D. Restart

Answer 22

Shutdown
Restart

Cloud configuration front ends as well as automation systems using scripting or API calls can shut down and restart virtual machines as required. Both restarts and shutdowns may be performed because of a code upgrade, troubleshooting, or other needs. The shutdown and restart processes can be monitored through the management systems and dashboards that are offered by the cloud provider. If they do not respond, theses systems can be configured to generate an alarm.

Chapter 5 (page 166)

Question 23

What are common automation systems that are used for patch management? (Choose three.)

A.  Chef
B.  Cloudpatch
C.  Ansible
D.  DevOps
E.  Puppet
F.  Cloud Deploy

Answer 23

Chef, Ansible, Puppet

Common patch management offerings are Chef, Puppet, Openstack, and Ansible.

Chapter 5 (page 165)

Question 24

What type of software change is designed to address a known bug or issue and to bring a system up-to-date with previous bug fixes?

A. Hot fix
B. Patch
C. Version update
D. Rollout

Answer 24

Patch

A patch is a piece of software that is intended to update an application, operating system, or any other software-based system to fix or improve its operations. Generally, patches are synonymous with fixes for security vulnerabilities or any other type of operational bug.
Patches do not offer feature enhancements but rater fixes or performance enhancements.

Chapter 5 (page 162)

Question 25

What backup method is used to create a master copy of an image that can be used as a template to create additional systems?

A. Full backup
B. Snapshot
C. Clone
D. Replicate

Answer 25

Clone

Cloning takes the master image and clones it to be used as another separate and independent VM. Important components of a server are changed to prevent address conflicts; these include the UUID and MAC addresses for the cloned server.

Question 26

What backup method creates a file-based image of the current state of a VM including the complete operating system and all applications that are stored on it?

A. Full backup
B. Snapshot
C. Clone
D. Replicate

Answer 26

Snapshot

A snapshot is a file-based image of the current state of a VM including the complete operating systems and all applications that are stored on it. The snapshot will record the data on the disk, its current state, and the VM’s configuration at that instant in time. Snapshots can be created while the VM is in operation and are used as a record of that VM’s state. They can be save to roll back to at a later time.

Question 27

To meet regulatory requirements, your company must provide geographical separation between active and backup data of certain medical records your company collects and processes in Germany. The requirement stipulate that the data cannot leave the country and must be in two or more data centers. As the cloud professional for your company, what recommendations would you offer to meet these requirements?

A. Remote
B. Offline
C. Target
D. Incremental

Answer 27

Remote

Many corporate and most regulatory requirements will specify that the backup data must be located at a separate data center from the origin data center and must be geographically away from each other. Many cloud providers interconnect their data centers into regions and availability zones using very high-speed, directly connect, fiber networks that allow large backup sets to traverse the data network between the data centers and that make remote backups feasible.

Chapter 5 (page 170)

Question 28

What type of software update may offer new features and benefits in addition to bug fixes?

A. Hotfix
B. Patch
C. Version update
D. Rollout

Answer 28

Version update

A version update is the process of replacing a software product with a newer version of the same product. Version updates can add new features, bring the system up-to-date, provide a rollup of all previous patches, and improve the product.

Question 29

What deployment system offers a structured process for a series of actions that should be taken in order to complete a process?

A. Automation
B. Workflow
C. Orchestration
D. Application programmable interface (API)

Answer 29

Workflow

Workflow automation defines a structured process for a series of actions that should be taken to complete a process. With cloud-based workflow services, special workflow applications are offered as managed service that creates a defined sequence of events, or workflow, with each procedure tracked and passed to the next processes to carry out the workflow.

Chapter 5 (page 162)

Question 30

These cloud-based systems abstract and hide much of the complexity of modern cloud systems and also reduce operational errors by executing tested cloud systems, scripts, workflows, or runbooks to make sure the systems are configured correctly.

A. XML
B. SDN
C. Orchestrations
D. REST/API

Answer 30

Orchestration

The main function of orchestration systems is to combine and execute the multiple tasks that must be completed to accomplish an operation. These tasks are combined into a workflow that defines the order of events and steps needed to complete the operation. The orchestration system uses software systems and processes to carry out the workflow.

Chapter 5 (page 163)

Question 31

When server is undergoing updates, it may be in a state that it will not respond to health checks, API calls, SNMP, or other means used to monitor its health by network management systems. This may cause false alarms and trigger automated troubleshooting systems. What can be done to prevent false alarms? (Choose two.)

A. Put the system into maintenance mode.
B. Edit workflow scripts.
C. Assign a workflow to the orchestration rollout.
D. Disable system alerts.

Answer 31

Put the system into maintenance mode.
Disable system alerts.

By placing a system into maintenance mode and disabling system alerts, the management systems will not alert on false positives when a system undergoing regular maintenance does not respond when polled by management systems, and it will not send out unsolicited alarms because of the maintenance being performed.

Question 32

What type of software change is designed for rapid deployment and to to correct a specific and critical issue?

A. Hotfix
B. Patch
C. Version update
D. Rollout

Answer 32

Hotfix

A hotfix is a software update type that is intended to fix an immediate and specific problem with a quick release procedure.

Question 33

What type of backup system is intended to provide quick restore access if needed?

A. VSAN
B. FCOE
C. Online
D. Replica

Answer 33

Online

Online backup storage is a system that can be accessed at anytime without the requirement for a network administrator to mount the media into a storage system. Online is the most common storage design, and backups offer an always-available method to store and retrieve the data.

Chapter 5 (page 172)

Question 34

What are tightly coupled computers that allow for software patching without incurring downtime called?

A. Blue-green
B. RAID
C. Cluster
D. Availability zone

Answer 34

Cluster

A cluster is a group of tightly coupled systems designed for high availability and that will operate if one or more nodes is offline

Question 35

Your IaaS cloud company has announced that there will be a brief outage for regularly scheduled maintenance over the weekend to apply a critical hotfix to vital infrastructure. What are the systems they may be applying patches to? (Choose three.)

A.  VM
B.  Load balancer
C.  Hypervisor
D.  NoSQL database
E.  Router
F.  E-mail server

Answer 35

Load balancer, Hypervisor, Router

Infrastructure that is part of the IaaS service provider’s area of responsibility includes load balancers, hypervisors, and routers. A virtual machine, database, or e-mail server would e the responsibility of the customer.

Question 36

You have been asked to update your entire fleet of Internet-facing web servers to remediate a critical bug. Your supervisor has agreed to operate under reduced computing capacity during the process but stipulates that there can be no downtime. What upgrade approach should you recommend your company follow to meet these requirements?

A. Orchestration
B. Rolling
C. Hotfix
D. Blue-green

Answer 36

Rolling

A rolling configuration will sequentially upgrade the web servers without causing a complete outage and would meet the requirement outlined in the question.
A rolling update is performed sequentially with one system being patched at a time; when the first system’s patch is complete, the next system is patched.

Chapter 5 (page 159)

Question 37

Before a new patch is released to the public, the release manager at a large software development house has requested a report that shows the pass/fail data to verify that the fix does, in fact, work. He is requesting data about the issue it was intended to fix and the results of the tests done to make sure that the fix does not interfere with other processes and that there are no memory or buffer issues experienced with the patched version of software. What process is he verifying?

A. Rollout
B. Orchestration
C. Automation
D. QA

Answer 37

QA

The manager is requesting data on the results of the quality assurance (QA) testing on the release. It is important that you establish a quality assurance test bed that allows you to test the patch in your specific environment to identify dependencies, interoperability issues, unknowns, and most of all, whether the update fixes the problem your are experiencing!

Rollout is a patch deployment process, and both automation and orchestration systems are used to install the patch.

Chapter 5 (page 159)

Question 38

Your company’s primary application is critical to the power generation industry and must be highly available. When critical patches need to be installed, downtime is not an option that your customers can tolerate. You have designed a web architecture to take this into account and that allows you to have an exact copy of your production fleet that can be brought online to replace your existing deployment for patching and maintenance. What type of model did you implement?

A. Cluster
B. DevOps
C. Blue-green
D. Rolling

Answer 38

Blue-green

Blue-green is a software deployment methodology that uses two configurations for production that are identical to each other. These deployments can alternate between each other, with one being active and the other being inactive.

Chapter 5 (page 159)

Question 39

What type of backup operation is based on the change of the source data since the last backup was performed?

A. Full
B. Differential
C. Incremental
D. Online

Answer 39

Incremental

Incremental backups are operations based on the change of the source data since the last incremental backup was performed. Incremental backups can be run, for example, on a nightly basis and capture the changes that were made since the previous backup was run the night before. This allows for an efficient backup operation since only the changes in the past 24 hours are stored on the backup media. Incremental backups are much less time and resource consuming than a full backup and are used to complement them.

Question 40

What backup solution requires an administrator or tape jukebox to make it available by inserting a tape or other media into a storage system for retrieval?

A. SAN A/B
B. FCON
C. Cluster
D. Offline

Answer 40

Offline

Offline storage requires the administrator to make the data available by inserting a tape or other media into a storage system for retrieval. Offline storage can be transported to remote storage facilities or stored in vaults for protection.

Question 41

Which of the following is a piece of software that is intended to update an application, operating system, or any other software-based system to fix or improve its operations?
A.	Rollout
B.	Patch
C.	Hotfix
D.	Version Update

Answer 41

Patch

A patch is a piece of software that is intended to update an application, operating system, or any other software-based system to fix or improve its operations.

A rollout is patch deployment process, and both automation and orchestration systems are used to install the patch.
Hot fix is a software update type that is intended to fix an immediate and specific problem.
A version update is a process of replacing a software product with a newer version of the same product.

Question 42

You have designed a web architecture that allows you to have an exact copy of your production fleet that can be brought online to replace your existing deployment for patching and maintenance. What type of model did you implement?

A. Cluster
B. DevOps
C. Blue-green
D. Rolling

Answer 42

Blue-green

Blue-green is a software deployment methodology that uses two configurations for production that are identical to each other. These deployments can alternate between each other, with one being active and the other being inactive.

Clusters are groups of computers interconnected by a local area network and are tightly coupled together.
The DevOps team evaluates the patches and integrates them into their product.
A rolling configuration will sequentially upgrade the webservers without causing a complete outage.

Question 43

Pete is troubleshooting a SQL database hosted in a public cloud using the IaaS service model. The database vendor has identified a bug in the table merge feature and is requesting that he install a software change that is designed for rapid deployment that corrects a specific and critical issue. What type of fix is this?

A. Hotfix
B. Patch
C. Version update
D. Rollout

Answer 43

Hotfix

A hotfix is a software update type that is intended to fix an immediate and specific problem.

A patch is a piece of software that is intended to update an application, operating system, or any other software-based system to fix or improve its operations.

A version update is the process of replacing a software product with a newer version of the same product.

A rollout is a patch deployment process, and both orchestration systems are used to install the patch.

Question 44

Cheryl is preparing to perform a major upgrade on a critical virtual machine. She wants to have a back-out plan if the upgrade validation fails. What virtual machine backup methods creates a file-based image on the current state of a VM including the complete operating system and all applications that are stored on it that she can use to restore the VM if the testing of the upgrade fails?

A. Full backup
B. Snapshot
C. Clone
D. Replicate

Answer 44

Snapshot

A snapshot is a file-based image of the current state of a VM including the complete operating systems and all applications that are stored on it. The snapshot will record the data on the disk, its current state, and the VM’s configuration at that instant in time and can be restored to operational state if needed.

Full backups are generally performed on a routine backup schedule.

A clone is an identical copy of the data that may be a storage volume, a filesystem, or the logical unit number (LUN) on a storage area network (SAN).

Replicas are backup copies of data that can be stored either locally or remotely that can act as alternative data stores from your main production operations.

Question 45

Ann has created a master image of a web server that she plans to use for adding new servers for her horizontally scaled e-commerce site. What VM backup method can be used to create an image to be used as a template to create additional system.

A. Full backup
B. Snapshot
C. Clone
D. Replicate

Answer 45

Clone

Cloning takes the master image and clones it to be used as another separate and independent VM. Important components of a server are changed to prevent address conflicts; these include the UUID and MAC addresses of the cloned server.

Full backups are generally performed on a routine backup schedule.

A snapshot is a file-based image of the current state of a VM including the complete operating system and all applications that are stored on it.

Replicas are backup copies of data that can be stored either locally or remotely that can act as alternative data stores from your main production operations.

Question 46

Which of the following creates an identical copy of the data that may be a storage volume, a filesystem, or a logical unit number (LUN) on a storage area network (SAN)?

A. Full backup
B. Cloning
C. Snapshot
D. Replicate

Answer 46

Cloning

Cloning creates an identical copy of the data that may be a storage volume, a filesystem, or the logical unit number (LUN) on a storage area network (SAN).

Full backups are generally performed on a routine backup schedule.

A snapshot is a file-based image of the current state of a VM including the complete operating systems and all applications that are stored on it.

Replicas are backup copies of data that can be stored either locally or remotely that can act as alternative data stores from your main production operations.

Question 47

Physical resources are virtualized and presented as resources to virtual machines running on hypervisors. What common resources does the hypervisor consume?
Each correct answer represents a complete solution. Choose two.

A.  Bare-metal cores
B.  Virtual RAM
C.  Virtual CPUs
D.  RAID
E.  Virtual Storage

Answer 47

Virtual RAM
Virtual Storage

A hypervisor will virtualize RAM, compute, and storage; the VMs operating on the hypervisor will access these pools.

A hypervisor will not consume bare-metal cores, virtual CPUs and RAID.

Question 48

A new application patch is being validated prior to release to the public. The developers have a release candidate, and the DevOps manager is requesting a report that shows the pass/fail data to verify that the fix does, in fact, resolve the problem. What process is he verifying?

A. Rollout
B. Orchestration
C. Automation
D. QA

Answer 48

QA

The manager is requesting data on the results of the quality assurance (QA) testing on the release.

A rollout is a patch deployment process, and both automation and orchestration systems are used to install the patch.

Orchestration platforms automate the provisioning of cloud services and often include a self-service dashboard that allows the consumer to manage and deploy cloud services with web browser.

Automation allows for rapid response to security events and can stop an attempted breach in progress as well as record all events to forensic analysis of the event.

Question 49

Jill is performing a Tuesday nigh backup of a Tier 2 storage volume that she has already completed a full backup on Sunday night. She only wants to back up files based on changes on the source data since the last backup. What type of backup is she performing?

A. Full
B. Differential
C. Incremental
D. Offline

Answer 49

Incremental

Incremental backups are operations based on changes of the source data since the last incremental backup was performed.

Full backups are generally performed on a routine backup schedule.

Differential backups allow for an efficient and significantly smaller backup operation

Online backups offer an always available method to store and retrieve data.