Evolution Of The Cloud

Question 1

What was the approach to managing servers before the advent of the cloud?

Answer 1

Organizations would buy large servers and handle their management internally.

Question 2

What are the key characteristics of the cloud era?

Answer 2

Infrastructure is provisioned through APIs.
Servers can be created and destroyed in seconds.
There has been a shift from long-lived and mutable servers to short-lived and immutable ones.

Question 3

How can cloud resources be provisioned?

Answer 3

Cloud resources can be provisioned through GUI (Graphical User Interface), API/CLI (Application Programming Interface/Command-Line Interface), or Infrastructure as Code (IaC).

Question 4

What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?

Answer 4

Infrastructure as Code is an approach that treats infrastructure management as code by defining and provisioning resources using machine-readable configuration files.

Question 5

What are the benefits of Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?

Answer 5

Automation of infrastructure tasks.
Reproducibility of environments.
Scalability of infrastructure.
Collaboration among team members.

Question 6

What are the categories of IaC tools?

Answer 6

Ad hoc scripts.
Configuration management tools.
Server templating tools.
Orchestration tools.
Provisioning tools.

Question 7

What is the difference between declarative and imperative approaches in IaC?

Answer 7

Declarative approach defines the desired state of infrastructure, while the imperative approach specifies the exact steps to create and configure it.

Question 8

What are some examples of cloud-specific IaC tools?

Answer 8

AWS CloudFormation.
Azure Resource Manager.
Google Cloud Deployment Manager.

Question 9

What are some examples of cloud-agnostic IaC tools?

Answer 9

Terraform.
Pulumi.

Question 10

What is the role of APIs in the cloud era?

Answer 10

APIs enable the provisioning and management of infrastructure resources in a standardized and programmatic manner.

Question 11

What are the advantages of instant server creation and destruction in the cloud?

Answer 11

It allows organizations to quickly scale resources based on demand, optimize resource allocation, and reduce costs.

Question 12

What is the difference between long-lived and short-lived servers in the cloud era?

Answer 12

Long-lived servers were traditionally maintained and modified over time, while short-lived servers are created from predefined templates and any changes are made at the template level.

Question 13

What are the benefits of GUI for provisioning cloud resources?

Answer 13

GUI provides a user-friendly visual interface for managing cloud resources and is suitable for simple configurations or one-off tasks.

Question 14

What are the benefits of API/CLI for provisioning cloud resources?

Answer 14

API/CLI allows for programmatic access to cloud resources, enabling automation, integration with other systems, and management at scale.

Question 15

What are the benefits of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for provisioning cloud resources?

Answer 15

IaC enables automation, reproducibility, scalability, and collaboration in infrastructure provisioning and management.

Question 16

What is the difference between declarative and imperative approaches in IaC?

Answer 16

Declarative approaches define the desired state of infrastructure, while imperative approaches specify the exact steps and procedures to achieve that state.

Question 17

What are some examples of cloud-agnostic IaC tools?

Answer 17

Terraform and Pulumi provide a unified way to define and manage infrastructure across multiple cloud providers.