Cloud Basics Flashcards
Understand Cloud Services Understand Key Terms Understand Cloud Models Understand Economies of Scale Understand Cloud Services
High availability
The ability to keep services up and running for long periods of time, with very little downtime, depending on the service in question.
Virtual Machine
A VM is an emulation of a computer operating system and hardware that appears to the user like a physical computer running Windows or Linux.
if you want to have more control and responsibility over maintenance, you could create a virtual machine (VM).
Public Cloud characteristics
Ownership - This is the resources that an organization or end user uses. Examples include storage and processing power. Resources do not belong to the organization that is utilizing them, but rather they are owned and operated by a third party such as the cloud service provider.
Public Access - his provides access to the public.
Multiple end users - Public cloud providers make resources available to multiple organizations.
Availability – Public clouds are the most common cloud deployment model.
Connectivity - Users and organizations are typically connected to public clouds over the internet.
Skills - Public clouds do not require deep technical knowledge to set up and use
Public cloud example
deploying a web application or a blog site on hardware and resources that are owned by a cloud provider. Using a public cloud in this scenario allows cloud users to get their website or blog up quickly, and then focus on maintaining the site without having to worry about purchasing, managing or maintaining the hardware on which it runs.
Businesses can use multiple public cloud service provider companies of varying scale. Microsoft Azure is an example of a public cloud provider.
What is a Private cloud
A private cloud is owned and operated by the organization that uses the resources from that cloud. They create a cloud environment in their own datacenter and provide self-service access to compute resources to users within their organization. The organization remains the owner, entirely responsible for the operation of the services they provide.
What is a Public cloud?
This is the most common deployment model. In this case, you have no local hardware to manage or keep up-to-date – everything runs on your cloud provider’s hardware. In some cases, you can save additional costs by sharing computing resources with other cloud users.
public cloud advantages
- High scalability/agility – you don’t have to buy a new server in order to scale
- Pay-as-you-go pricing – you pay only for what you use, no CapEx costs
- You’re not responsible for maintenance or updates of the hardware
- Minimal technical knowledge to set up and use - you can leverage the skills and expertise of the cloud provider to ensure workloads are secure, safe, and highly available
Public cloud disadvantages
- There may be specific security requirements that cannot be met by using public cloud
- There may be government policies, industry standards, or legal requirements which public clouds cannot meet
- You don’t own the hardware or services and cannot manage them as you may want to
- Unique business requirements, such as having to maintain a legacy application might be hard to meet
Private cloud advantages
- You have complete control over the resources and can ensure the configuration can support any scenario or legacy application
- You have complete control (and responsibility) over security
- Private clouds can meet strict security, compliance, or legal requirements in ways a public cloud might not be able to
Private cloud disadvantages
- You have upfront CapEx costs and must purchase the hardware for startup and maintenance
- Owning the equipment limits the agility - to scale you must buy, install, and setup new hardware
- Private clouds require IT skills and expertise that’s hard to come
Private cloud example
A use case scenario for a private cloud would be when an organization has data that cannot be put in the public cloud, perhaps for legal reasons. For example, they may have medical data that cannot be exposed publicly. Another scenario may be where government policy requires specific data to be kept in-country or privately.
A private cloud can provide cloud functionality to external customers as well, or to specific internal departments such as Accounting or Human Resources.
• Scalability
The ability to increase or decrease resources for any given workload. You can add additional resources to service a workload (known as scaling out), or add additional capabilities to manage an increase in demand to the existing resource (known as scaling up). Scalability doesn’t have to be done automatically
Elasticity
The ability to automatically or dynamically increase or decrease resources as needed. Elastic resources match the current needs, and resources are added or removed automatically to meet future needs when it’s needed, and from the most advantageous geographic location. A distinction between scalability and elasticity is that elasticity is done automatically
• Agility
The ability to react quickly. Cloud services can allocate and deallocate resources quickly. They are provided on-demand via self-service, so vast amounts of computing resources can be provisioned in minutes. There is no manual intervention in provisioning or deprovisioning services
• Fault tolerance
The ability to remain up and running even in the event of a component or service no longer functioning. Typically, redundancy is built into cloud services architecture so if one component fails, a backup component takes its place. The type of service is said to be tolerant of faults.
• Disaster recovery
The ability to recover from an event which has taken down a cloud service. Cloud services disaster recovery can happen very quickly with automation and services being readily available to use.
• Global reach
The ability reach audiences around the globe. Cloud services can have presence in various regions across the globe which you can access, giving you a presence in those regions even though you may not have any infrastructure in that region.
