Lesson 4: Managing Cloud Storage

Question 1

A cloud technician is analyzing storage tiers for a critical Structured Query Language (SQL) instance which requires high performance. Which of the following would best suit the technician’s needs?

A.gp3
B.st1
C.io2
D.sc1

Answer 1

C.io2

io1 and io2 are the highest performance options for transactional workloads like Microsoft Structured Query Language (MSSQL) and International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) DB2.

Question 2

Following a storage configuration upgrade, a number of applications have begun performing slower than expected. A technician tests the read/write performance, and the results show up to 20% slower speeds than projected. Which of the following is most likely the culprit of this performance degradation?

A.Incompatible RAM
B.The IOPS is exceeding its cap
C.Auto-scaling
D.Quota exceeded

Answer 2

B.The IOPS is exceeding its cap

Input/Output Cycles per Second (IOPS) capping can occur when the number of operations exceeds the disk tier’s specification. In this case, the application is performing slower than expected and will only correct itself if the technician configures the correct storage.

Question 3

A cloud administrator managing company resources wants to maximize storage efficiency while preserving the quality of graphic design archives. Which method could be used to achieve this goal?

A.Deduplication
B.Compression
C.CDN replication
D.Distributed file system replication

Answer 3

A.Deduplication

Data deduplication removes duplicate file chunks and replaces the content with pointers to a definitive copy. As a result, data deduplication can provide significant storage savings for the entire space without significant quality degradation.

Question 4

Which of the following are examples of block storage? (Select all that apply.)

A.Azure File Storage
B.GCP Persistent Disk
C.AWS EBS
D.GCP Cloud Storage

Answer 4

B.GCP Persistent Disk
C.AWS EBS

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Persistent Disk is an example of block storage. Block storage organizes the data for the benefit of the data itself.

Block storage such as Amazon Elastic Block Store (AWS EBS) provides high availability and redundancy by replicating data within the availability zone that hosts the EBS storage.

Question 4

A company has asked an administrator to suggest options that would allow the company to have an almost entirely logical solution from the current physical hardware in place. The company has already procured a host of virtualization resources, including VMs, hypervisors, vCPUs, and vNICs. Which method would permit the company to add a virtual storage option to the entire solution?

A.Persistent storage
B.SDN
C.Hyperconvergence
D.SAN replication

Answer 4

C.Hyperconvergence

With hyperconvergence, compute, storage, and network resources are inseparable and managed as a single unit. This is in contrast to converged resources, which an administrator can separate into their constituent parts. Hyperconverged storage allows the company to accomplish its intent of combined logical storage.

Question 5

A technical team is updating its storage arrangement by moving to a network solution. The team is less concerned about maximum capacity and more concerned about speed. Which of the following options would produce the greatest throughput?

A.2.6 GHz
B.3.2 GHz
C.150 MiB/s
D.75 MiB/sec

Answer 5

C.150 MiB/s

150 MiB/s, or mebibytes per second, would produce the fastest throughput. Throughput refers to the data transfer speed, or the number of bits read or written per second.

Question 6

A startup company requires a cheap cloud storage solution to accommodate its initially low overhead. The company only uses a few basic servers and primarily operates off of basic workstations. Which of the following storage options would make the most sense for the company right now?

A.Block
B.Object
C.Blob
D.File

Answer 6

D.File

File storage is simple and inexpensive, relying on the computer’s filesystem, and used for basic file servers. It is much less scalable, which is less of a concern for the startup company.

Question 7

A department utilizing a large file system for its storage would like to avoid running out of space and subsequently necessitating the need for additional storage. Of the units within the department, the development team requires the most storage for projects, while the other teams can utilize much less with proper storage management. What would be an ideal option to ensure that the other departments do not overuse their space allocation?

A.Deduplication
B.Soft quota
C.Data compression
D.Storage filesystem quota

Answer 7

D.Storage filesystem quota

Filesystems, such as Microsoft NTFS, support storage quotas on a per-user/per-group basis. An administrator could set certain limits on each group as a hard storage quota.

Question 8

A cloud administrator wants to use a network share to store files in the common Windows sharing format, which a web server will create but does not want to use a traditional file server. The administrator prefers using a serverless option so there are fewer cloud instances to manage. What storage protocol can the administrator use for this purpose?

A.iSCSI
B.NFS
C.FC
D.CIFS

Answer 8

D.CIFS

Common Internet File System (CIFS) shares (or exposes) folders to network clients. Network clients can then connect to the shared folders and access files stored in it. Azure Files is a serverless file-sharing service that makes shared data available via Server Message Blocks (SMB) or Network File System (NFS) protocols.

Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI) is a common Storage Area Network (SAN) solution. It provides block communications by using SCSI commands over a traditional Ethernet network.

NFS exports directories on a network server. Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides NFS via Elastic File System (EFS).

Fibre Channel (FC) protocols carry SCSI commands over fiber optic cables. This implementation requires specialized network devices and is the most common SAN structure.

Question 9

A small company would like to minimize excess hardware maintenance expenditures during its growth stage. The company currently maintains physical drives for its entire operation, which throughout the growth process, has become increasingly expensive. When considering a cloud solution, what should the company consider for its storage needs?

A.IaaS
B.STaaS
C.DaaS
D.DRaaS

Answer 9

B.STaaS

Standalone Storage as a Service (STaaS) is a cloud solution where companies lease storage infrastructure from another entity, such as One Drive, Google Drive, and Dropbox.

Question 10

An administrator is configuring a SAN. Which of the following would permit the fastest possible performance while also providing redundancy?

A.Point-to-point Fiber Channel
B.Switched Fibre Channel
C.iSCSI
D.M.2

Answer 10

B.Switched Fibre Channel

Switched Fibre Channel adds a layer of switches between the nodes and the storage, which provides scalability and multiple paths between the storage area network (SAN) components. The switches optimize the data transfer traffic and provide redundancy.

Question 11

If a company requires a storage solution that possesses both redundancy and maximum storage efficiency (to keep costs down), which of the following options would make the most sense?

A.RAID 0
B.RAID 1
C.RAID 10
D.RAID 5

Answer 11

D.RAID 5

RAID 5 is a striping with parity configuration. It supports redundancy and utilizes less total hardware. File blocks striped across multiple drives also allows certain performance advantages. Organizations use these to make more efficient storage use.

Question 12

A cloud administrator is migrating a significant amount of server data from company-controlled premises to a cloud environment. As such, capacity is a primary concern, but the company will access the data very infrequently and so, a specific data model will not be required. Which storage type would be best for this requirement?

A.File
B.Blob
C.Block
D.Hybrid disk

Answer 12

B.Blob

Blob storage is most useful for storing very large amounts of data in an unstructured manner. As the data remains massive and would not require frequent access, cool or archive-tiered blob storage makes the most sense.

Question 13

A Windows technician is configuring a new customer relationship management application. To complete the setup, the technician must push all necessary folders to a remote team. Which of the following systems would the technician most likely use to complete this task?

A.NFS
B.NTFS
C.CIFS
D.RDP

Answer 13

C.CIFS

Common Internet File System (CIFS) shares folders with network clients, who can then connect to the shared folders and access the data stored in it. Access controls manage who has permissions to the resources. Microsoft systems predominantly use CIFS.

Question 14

What will a cloud administrator most likely create before uploading individual files to a cloud storage?

A.A bucket
B.A hybrid tier
C.A block storage
D.A CIFS share

Answer 14

A.A bucket

Buckets are the primary storage unit for data objects. When working with cloud storage, cloud administrators will need to create one or more buckets.

Question 15

A company is currently switching its network protocols after a successful breach. Attackers stole a small amount of PII resulting from a packet sniffing attack. Which solution will help the company prevent this attack moving forward?

A.IPsec
B.iSCSI
C.SSO
D.Pen testing

Answer 15

A.IPsec

IPsec is a secure network protocol that encrypts data packets to provide secure communication between systems over an Internet Protocol network. Often, an administrator can deploy this on a dedicated network to add increased protection.

Question 16

A storage administrator is architecting a solution that will provide quicker access to users. Which of the following replication strategies will support this? (Select all that apply.)

A.Storage area network replication
B.Content delivery network replication
C.Virtual machine replication
D.Distributed file system replication

Answer 16

B.Content delivery network replication
D.Distributed file system replication

Content delivery network (CDN) replication replicates cloud-stored data to datacenters near users to provide quick access. This is a common strategy to enhance the user experience.

Distributed file system replication replicates server-stored data to servers near the anticipated users to provide quick access.

Storage Area Network (SAN) replication replicates between SAN storage structures. Data may be replicated in multiple ways, depending on the storage scenario.

Question 17

A backup administrator on the team requested more storage capacity for backup media. Instead of increasing storage capacity, another backup administrator on the team enabled the deduplication feature. How will this feature benefit the team’s storage needs?

A.Creates a software-defined storage (SDS)
B.Changes storage to thin provisioned
C.Creates a RAID volume
D.Removes duplicate data blocks

Answer 17

D.Removes duplicate data blocks

Deduplication removes duplicate data blocks on the storage medium. This feature may be available on an application-like backup software or may be built-in to the storage appliance or service.

Question 18

A backup administrator is researching options to store backup data in the cloud. Other than the cloud’s potential to become an offsite storage solution in a disaster recovery scenario, what would not benefit from using a Storage as a Service (STaaS) cloud subscription? (Select all that apply.)

A.Scalability
B.Accessibility
C.Data control
D.Vendor lock-in

Answer 18

C.Data control
D.Vendor lock-in

Data control is a potential drawback to using a Storage as a Service (STaaS) subscription. The data will be physically located in a different geographic location, and how the cloud service provider (CSP) hosts the storage may not comply with company policies or other regulations.

Vendor lock-in is a potential drawback to using a STaaS subscription. Having the option to switch vendors or implement a different solution may become difficult when the backup destination is with the CSP.

Question 19

If administrators would like to protect against significant availability failures within specific geographical regions, which of the following methods might they employ?

A.Availability zone replication
B.SAN replication
C.Distributed file system replication
D.CDN replication

Answer 19

A.Availability zone replication

Availability zone replication is a replication method that copies data among datacenters in a regional environment to provide availability if a specific datacenter becomes inaccessible.

Question 20

A Microsoft administrator must reconfigure storage by access requirements for a company. Which of the following tiers are potential options for the administrator to utilize as storage segments? (Select all that apply.)

A.Hot
B.Archive
C.Standard infrequent
D.Glacier

Answer 20

A.Hot
B.Archive

The hot access tier is a storage configuration for frequently accessed data offered by Azure Blob Storage.

The archive level tier is also a storage option under Azure Blob but is meant for holding rarely accessed data.

Question 21

An organization would like to add a new storage system to house its array of graphics productions and marketing materials. Leadership prefers a solution that would provide high performance and fault tolerance, with rebuild times minimized in case of a data loss scenario. Which of the following would best suit this need?

A.Hardware RAID 10
B.Hardware RAID 5
C.Software RAID 10
D.Software RAID 0

Answer 21

A.Hardware RAID 10

RAID 10 is a nested RAID configuration housing a mirrored set of RAID 0 drives. RAID 10 requires a minimum of four HDDs, and this configuration permits very fast rebuild times. Hardware systems are faster than software systems.

A hardware RAID 5 supports redundancy as it utilizes parity, but because of this constantly running parity calculation, this system will not rebuild as quickly as a RAID 10.