IT Terms - Architecture

Question 1

Linear Scalability

Answer 1

The ability to increase production inputs like labor by a certain percentage and get an equal percentage increase in output.
EX: Increasing the number of machine and/or CPU’s without changing the application code.

Question 2

Performance

Answer 2

Measures the speed with which a single request can be executed.

Question 3

Scalability

Answer 3

The property of a system to handle a growing amount of work by adding resources to the system.
The ability to maintain a consistent throughput rate proportionally as resources are added to the system. Difficult to achieve due to adding resources incurs additional overhead.

Question 4

Amdahl’s Law - Computer Architecture

Answer 4

Gives the theoretical speedup in latency of an execution of a task at a fixed workload that can be expected of a system whose resources are improved

Question 5

Vertical Scalability

Answer 5

Adding resource within the same logical unit to increase capacity.
EX: Adding CPUs to an existing server, or expanding storage by adding hard drive on an existing RAID/SAN storage.

Question 6

Horizontal Scalability

Answer 6

Adding multiple logical units of resources and making them work as a single unit. Most clustering solutions, distributed file systems, load-balancers help you with horizontal scalability.

Question 7

Immutable Infrasturcture

Answer 7

An infrastructure paradigm in which servers are never modified after they’re deployed. If something needs to be updated, fixed, or modified in any way, new servers built from a common image with the appropriate changes are provisioned to replace the old ones. After they’re validated, they’re put into use and the old ones are decommissioned.