Module 1: Cloud Concepts

Question 1

What is cloud computing?

Answer 1

Cloud computing is renting resources, like storage space or CPU cycles, on another company’s computers. You only pay for what you use. The computing services offered vary but they typically include: Computer power Storage Networking Analytics

Question 2

What are containers?

Answer 2

Containers provide a consistent, isolated execution environment for applications. 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. This allows the container to start up in just a few seconds, because there’s no OS to boot and initialize. You only need the app to launch.

Question 3

What is serverless computing?

Answer 3

Serverless computing lets you run application code without creating, configuring, or maintaining a server. The core idea is that your application is broken into separate functions that run when triggered by some action. This is ideal for automated tasks - for example, you can build a serverless process that automatically sends an email confirmation after a customer makes an online purchase.

Question 4

How does serverless computing differ from VMs and containers?

Answer 4

The serverless model differs from VMs and containers in that you only pay for the processing time used by each function as it executes. VMs and containers are charged while they’re running - even if the applications on them are idle.

Question 5

What are the benefits of cloud computing?

Answer 5

It’s cost-effective. It’s scalable. It’s elastic. It’s current. It’s reliable. It’s global. It’s secure.

Question 6

The ability to keep services up and running for long periods of time is called what?

Answer 6

High availability

Question 7

The ability to increase or decrease resources for any given workload is called what?

Answer 7

Scalability

Question 8

The ability to automatically or dynamically increase or decrease resources as needed is called what?

Answer 8

Elasticity

Question 9

The ability to react quickly is called what?

Answer 9

Agility

Question 10

The ability to remain up and running even in the event of a component or service no longer functioning is called what?

Answer 10

Fault tolerance

Question 11

The ability to recover from an event which has taken down a cloud service is called what?

Answer 11

Disaster recovery

Question 12

The ability reach audiences around the globe is called what?

Answer 12

Global reach

Question 13

The ability deploy resources in datacenters around the globe to address latency is called what?

Answer 13

Customer latency capabilities

Question 14

The ability for users to predict what costs they will incur for a particular cloud service is called what?

Answer 14

Predictive cost considerations

Question 15

The ability to do things more cheaply and more efficiently when operating at a larger scale in comparison to operating at a smaller scale.

Answer 15

Economies of Scale

Question 16

What is Capital Expenditure (CapEx)?

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

What is Operational Expenditure (OpEx)?

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

What is the consumption-based model?

Answer 18

End users only pay for the resources that they use.

Question 19

What are some benefits to the consumption-based model?

Answer 19

No upfront costs. No need to purchase and manage costly infrastructure that they may or may not use to its fullest. The ability to pay for additional resources when they are needed. The ability to stop paying for resources that are no longer needed.

Question 20

What is a Public Cloud?

Answer 20

A public cloud is owned by the cloud services provider (also known as a hosting provider). It provides resources and services to multiple organizations and users, who connect to the cloud service via a secure network connection, typically over the internet.

Question 21

Describe the Public Cloud Model characteristics.

Answer 21

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. Multiple End Users. Public cloud modes may make their resources available to multiple organizations. Public Access. This provides access to the public. Availability. This is the most common cloud-type deployment model. Connectivity. Users and organizations are typically connected to the public cloud over the internet using a web browser. Skills. Public clouds do not require deep technical knowledge to set up and use its resources.

Question 22

Describe a use case scenario for a Public Cloud.

Answer 22

A common use case scenario is 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.

Question 23

What is a Private Cloud?

Answer 23

A private cloud is owned and operated by the organization that uses the resources from that cloud.

Question 24

Describe the characteristics of the Private Cloud model.

Answer 24

Ownership. The owner and user of the cloud services are the same. Hardware. The owner is entirely responsible for the purchase, maintenance, and management of the cloud hardware. Users. A private cloud operates only within one organization and cloud computing resources are used exclusively by a single business or organization. Connectivity. A connection to a private cloud is typically made over a private network that is highly secure. Public access. Does not provide access to the public. Skills. Requires deep technical knowledge to set up, manage, and maintain.

Question 25

Describe a use case scenario of a Private Cloud.

Answer 25

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.

Question 26

What is a Hybrid Cloud?

Answer 26

A hybrid cloud combines both public and private clouds, allowing you to run your applications in the most appropriate location.

Question 27

Describe the characteristics of the Hybrid Cloud model.

Answer 27

Resource location. Specific resources run or are used in a public cloud, and others run or are used in a private cloud. Cost and efficiency. Hybrid cloud models allow an organization to leverage some of the benefits of cost, efficiency, and scale that are available with a public cloud model. Control. Organizations retain management control in private clouds. Skills. Technical skills are still required to maintain the private cloud and ensure both cloud models can operate together

Question 28

Describe a use case scenario of a Hybrid Cloud.

Answer 28

An example of a hybrid cloud usage scenario would be hosting a website in the public cloud and linking it to a highly secure database hosted in a private cloud. Hybrid cloud scenarios can be useful when organizations have some things that cannot be put in a public cloud, possibly for legal reasons. For example, you may have medical data that cannot be exposed publicly. Another example is one or more applications that run on old hardware that can’t be updated. In this case, you can keep the old system running locally in your private cloud and connect it to the public cloud for authorization or storage.

Question 29

What are some advantages of a Public Cloud?

Answer 29

No CapEx. You don’t have to buy a new server in order to scale. Agility. Applications can be made accessible quickly, and deprovisioned whenever needed. Consumption-based model. Organizations pay only for what they use, and operate under an OpEx model. Maintenance. Organizations have no responsibility for hardware maintenance or updates. Skills. No deep technical skills are required to deploy, use, and gain the benefits of a public cloud. Organizations can leverage the skills and expertise of the cloud provider to ensure workloads are secure, safe, and highly available.

Question 30

What are some disadvantages of a Public Cloud?

Answer 30

Security. There may be specific security requirements that cannot be met by using public cloud. Compliance. There may be government policies, industry standards, or legal requirements which public clouds cannot meet. Ownership. Organizations don’t own the hardware or services and cannot manage them as they may wish. Specific scenarios. If organizations have a unique business requirement, such as having to maintain a legacy application, it may be hard to meet that requirement with public cloud services.

Question 31

What are some advantages of a Private Cloud?

Answer 31

Control. Organizations have complete control over the resources. Security. Organizations have complete control over security. Compliance. If organizations have very strict security, compliance, or legal requirements, a private cloud may be the only viable option. Specific scenarios. If an organization has a specific scenario not easily supported by a public cloud provider (such as having to maintain a legacy application), it may be preferable to run the application locally.

Question 32

What are some disadvantages of a Private Cloud?

Answer 32

Upfront CapEx. Hardware must be purchased for start-up and maintenance. Agility. Private clouds are not as agile as public clouds, because you need to purchase and set up all the underlying infrastructure before they can be leveraged. Maintenance. Organizations have the responsibility for hardware maintenance and updates. Skills. Private clouds require in-house IT skills and expertise that may be hard to get or be costly.

Question 33

What are some advantages of a Hybrid Cloud?

Answer 33

Flexibility. The most flexible scenario: with a hybrid cloud setup, an organization can decide to run their applications either in a private cloud or in a public cloud. Costs. Organizations can take advantage of economies of scale from public cloud providers for services and resources as they wish. This allows them to access cheaper storage than they can provide themselves. Control. Organizations can still access resources over which they have total control. Security. Organizations can still access resources for which they are responsible for security. Compliance. Organizations maintain the ability to comply with strict security, compliance, or legal requirements as needed. Specific scenarios. Organizations maintain the ability to support specific scenarios not easily supported by a public cloud provider, such as running legacy applications. In this case, they can keep the old system running locally, and connect it to the public cloud for authorization or storage. Additionally, they could host a website in the public cloud, and link it to a highly secure database hosted in their private cloud.

Question 34

What are some disadvantages of a Hybrid Cloud?

Answer 34

Upfront CapEx. Upfront CapEx is still required before organizations can leverage a private cloud. Costs. Purchasing and maintaining a private cloud to use alongside the public cloud can be more expensive than selecting a single deployment model. Skills. Deep technical skills are still required to be able to set up a private cloud. Ease of management. Organizations need to ensure there are clear guidelines to avoid confusion, complications or misuse.

Question 35

What is the shared responsibility model?

Answer 35

The shared responsibility model ensures cloud workloads are run securely and in a well-managed way. Depending on the service you are using, the cloud provider is responsible for some aspects of the workload management, and the customer or end user is responsible for other aspects of the workload management, and in some cases, both share a responsibility.

Question 36

What is Iaas?

Answer 36

IaaS is the most basic category of cloud computing services. With IaaS, you rent IT infrastructure servers and virtual machines (VMs), storage, networks, and operating systems from a cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis. It’s an instant computing infrastructure, provisioned and managed over the internet.

Question 37

What is PaaS?

Answer 37

PaaS provides an environment for building, testing, and deploying software applications. The goal of PaaS is to help create an application as quickly as possible without having to worry about managing the underlying infrastructure.

Question 38

What is SaaS?

Answer 38

SaaS is software that is centrally hosted and managed for the end customer. It allows users to connect to and use cloud-based apps over the internet. Common examples are email, calendars, and office tools such as Microsoft Office 365.

Question 39

What are some common usage scenarios of IaaS?

Answer 39

Migrating workloads. Typically, IaaS facilities are managed in a similar way as on-premises infrastructure and provide an easy migration path for moving existing applications to the cloud. Test and development. Teams can quickly set up and dismantle test and development environments, bringing new applications to market faster. IaaS makes scaling development testing environments up and down fast and economical. Website hosting. Running websites using IaaS can be less expensive than traditional web hosting. Storage, backup, and recovery. Organizations avoid the capital outlay and complexity of storage management, which typically requires a skilled staff to manage data and meet legal and compliance requirements. IaaS is useful for managing unpredictable demand and steadily growing storage needs. It can also simplify the planning and management of backup and recovery systems.

Question 40

What are some common usage scenarios of PaaS?

Answer 40

Development framework. PaaS provides a framework that developers can build upon to develop or customize cloud-based applications. Similar to the way you create a Microsoft Excel macro, PaaS lets developers create applications using built-in software components. Cloud features such as scalability, high-availability, and multi-tenant capability are included, reducing the amount of coding that developers must do. Analytics or business intelligence. Tools provided as a service with PaaS allow organizations to analyze and mine their data. They can find insights and patterns, and predict outcomes to improve business decisions such as forecasting, product design, and investment returns.

Question 41

What are some common usage scenarios of SaaS?

Answer 41

Examples of Microsoft SaaS services include Office 365, Skype, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Question 42

What are some advantages of IaaS?

Answer 42

No CapEx. Users have no upfront costs. Agility. Applications can be made accessible quickly, and deprovisioned whenever needed. Consumption-based model. Organizations pay only for what they use and operate under an OpEx model. Skills. No deep technical skills are required to deploy, use, and gain the benefits of a public cloud. Organizations can leverage the skills and expertise of the cloud provider to ensure workloads are secure, safe, and highly available. Cloud benefits. Organizations can leverage the skills and expertise of the cloud provider to ensure workloads are made secure and highly available. Flexibility: IaaS is the most flexible cloud service as you have control to configure and manage the hardware running your application.

Question 43

What are some disadvantages of IaaS?

Answer 43

Management. The shared responsibility model applies; the user manages and maintains the services they have provisioned, and the cloud provider manages and maintains the cloud infrastructure.

Question 44

What are some advantages of Paas?

Answer 44

No CapEx. Users have no upfront costs. Agility. PaaS is more agile than IaaS, and users do not need to configure servers for running applications. Consumption-based model. Users pay only for what they use, and operate on an OpEx model. Skills. No deep technical skills are required to deploy, use, and gain the benefits of PaaS. Cloud benefits. Users can leverage the skills and expertise of the cloud provider to ensure their workloads are made secure and highly available. In addition, users can gain access to more cutting-edge development tools and toolsets. They then can apply these tools and toolsets across an application’s lifecycle. Productivity. Users can focus on application development only, as all platform management is handled by the cloud provider. Working with distributed teams as services is easier, as the platform is accessed over the internet and can be made globally available more easily.

Question 45

What are some disadvantages of PaaS?

Answer 45

Platform limitations. There may be some limitations to a cloud platform that could affect how an application runs. Any limitations should be taken into consideration when considering which PaaS platform is best suited for a workload.

Question 46

What are some advantages of Saas?

Answer 46

No CapEx. Users don’t have any upfront costs. Agility. Users can provide staff with access to the latest software quickly and easily. Pay-as-you-go pricing model: Users pay for the software they use on a subscription model, typically monthly or yearly, regardless of how much they use the software. Flexibility. Users can access the same application data from anywhere.

Question 47

What are some disadvantages of Saas?

Answer 47

Software limitations. There may be some limitations to a software application that might affect how users work. Any limitations should be taken into consideration when considering which PaaS platform is best suited for a workload.

Question 48

List the cloud services types in order of most user management to least user management

Answer 48

1. IaaS 2. PaaS 3. SaaS