Describe Cloud Concepts (15-20%) Flashcards
Describe the benefits and considerations of using cloud services
What is cloud computing?
Where?
How does payment work?
Renting resources like storage space or CPU cycles
On another company’s computers
You pay for only what you use
What is the name of the company providing cloud services?
Cloud Provider
What are the typical services provided by cloud provider?
4 key areas of Cloud
Compute power - such as Linux servers or web applications used for computation and processing tasks
Storage - such as files and databases
Networking - such as secure connections between the cloud provider and your company
Analytics - such as visualizing telemetry and performance data
What is a VM?
Virtual machine (VM). A VM is an emulation of a computer - just like your desktop or laptop you're using now. Each VM includes an operating system and hardware that appears to the user like a physical computer. You can then install whatever software you need to do the tasks you want to run in the cloud.
What are containers?
They’re similar to VMs except they don’t require a guest operating system. Instead, the application and all its dependencies is packaged into a “container” and then a standard runtime environment is used to execute the app.
What is serverless computing?
How does payment work?
CODE w/o SERVER - lets you run application code without creating, configuring, or maintaining a server.
PAY FOR PROCESSING TIME - the serverless model differs from VMs and containers in that you only pay for the processing time used by each function as it executes.
Diagram of the three cloud compute approaches
See documents
NB: What are the main benefits of cloud computing? (7)
Cost-effective
- pay-as-you-go or consumption-based models
Scalable
- vertical/scaling up: adding resources to existing server
- horizontal/scaling out - adding more servers
- scaling can be done manually or automatically
Elastic
- cloud can automatically allocate more computing resources and later de-allocates
Current
- removes burden of software patches, hardware setup, upgrades and IT Mnt tasks
Reliable
- data backup, DR, data replication = fault tolerance
Global
- local presence to customers
- offsite/cross-region DR and redundancy
Secure
- physical and digital
NB: What are the benefits of a consumption-based model? (4)
No upfront infrastructure costs
No need to purchase and manage costly infrastructure that you may not use to its fullest
The ability to pay for additional resources only when they are needed
The ability to stop paying for resources that are no longer needed
NB: Describe the principles of economies of scale
Economies of scale is the ability to do things more efficiently or at a lower-cost per unit when operating at a larger scale.
CP’s: big buying = big saving for them and for consumer
Describe the differences between Capital Expenditure (CapEx) and Operational
Expenditure (OpEx)
Capital Expenditure (CapEx): CapEx is the spending of money on physical infrastructure up front, and then deducting that expense from your tax bill over time. CapEx is an upfront cost, which has a value that reduces over time.
Operational Expenditure (OpEx): OpEx is spending money on services or products now and being billed for them now. You can deduct this expense from your tax bill in the same year. There’s no upfront cost. You pay for a service or product as you use it.
Benefits of CapEx (1)
FIXED. Your costs are fixed, meaning you know exactly how much is being spent. This is appealing when you need to predict the expenses before a project starts due to a limited budget.
Benefits of OpEx (2)
Demand and growth can be unpredictable and can outpace expectation, which is a challenge for the CapEx model.
PAYG - pay as much or as little for the infrastructure as required.
AGILE - particularly appealing if the demand fluctuates or is unknown. Cloud agility is the ability to rapidly change an IT infrastructure to adapt to the evolving needs of the business.
What is a cloud deployment model? (3)
WHERE - defines where your data is stored
HOW – how do customers get to it, and
WHERE - do the applications run?
NB: Describe public cloud (2)
COMMON - this is the most common deployment model.
LIGHT - you have no local hardware to manage or keep up-to-date – everything runs on your cloud provider’s hardware.
