Virtualization and cloud computing Flashcards
What is IaaS?
Infrastructure as a service, sometimes called hardware as a service (HaaS)
It is outsourcing your hardware to a 3rd party cloud service provider.
You’re still responsible for the management, operating system and applications running on that OS, and security of these devices.
A good example of this would be a web server provider.
What is SaaS?
Software as a service.
On demand software with no local installation. You just log in and use that service.
You dont need to ensure the software is constantly updated and patched. You are not responsibility for any maintenance of that application.
The company offering this service handles all of that for you, you just log in and use the service that they are providing.
What is PaaS?
Platform as a service. This is a middleground between IaaS and Saas.
In this instance a service provider is giving you a platform to develop your own applications. They would provide to you the operating system, the infrastructure underneath, some virtualization services, and would provide you with the building blocks you need to make your own applications which are customized just for you.
What is XaaS?
A broad, catch all term, used to describe any type of service that is provided over the cloud. Usually describes things that are available over a public cloud rather than a private cloud in your own data center. Usually has a flexible pricing model with no huge upfront costs and scalability as needed, making smaller organizations have an easier time getting started.
It makes IT become more of a cost-center model and allows you to take any IT function to be changed into a cloud based service.
What is an MSP?
Managed service provider. Also a cloud service provider.
Not all cloud service providers are MSPs.
MSP support will typically include things such as:
-network connectivity management
-backups and disaster recovery
-growth management and planning
What is an MSSP?
Managed security service provider.
This is an MSP that focuses primarily on IT security.
So they will manage your firewall, your patches, security audits, etc, as well as emergency response.
What is the difference between an on premises and off premises cloud service.
An ON premises cloud service will have your applications running on local hardware and your servers are in your data center in your building.
An OFF premises cloud service will not have your servers located in your building, they may not even be running on your hardware.
What is the difference between a public cloud model and a private cloud model? What about a community cloud model?
A public cloud model will have their services available to virtually anyone with an internet connection.
A community cloud model is somewhere in the middle where several organizations share the same resources, because of costs, difficulty, etc.
A private cloud model will give you your own virtualized local data center.
Occasionally you will see hybrid models that are a mix of both to support the individual needs of the company, with some resources being public, and some private.
What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing is computing on demand with massive data storage capability.
Advantages to it are that you don’t have to buy so much equipment all at once and you can pay as you go, and that it is extremely easy to make changes and add on certain other features or services with a click of a button.
It is not always the best solution though, since you are outsourcing things to a 3rd party, you will have increased latency since the cloud is far away, and limited bandwidth. It is also sometimes difficult to protect the data in the cloud, because it will be stored in the format of the data service provider and it may not allow you to do any kind of encryption.
Lastly it requires a constant internet/network connection.
What is edge computing?
Edge computing helps bring the processing and storage of data closer to the equipment. Typically tied to IoT technology, it allows computing to be done with very low latency and perform analytics in real time.
An example of this would be your smart thermostat sensing the temperature and immediately computing on site what it needs to do (possibly lowering the temperature) and then sending that job over to the air conditioning unit, without having to use the external internet, therefore saving time.
What is fog computing?
Fog computing is basically Cloud+IoT
Private data never leaves. Less sensitive data can go to the cloud for long term analysis.
Might be used just so one IoT machine can communicate with another.
Sometimes an IoT device may provide additional functionality by taking some of its data and moving it into the cloud for processing.
There may be also a mid point though between keeping the data locally and having the data on one centrally stored cloud based server. Instead of consolidating this data in the cloud for all devices we can have a subset of devices consolidated in the FOG.
It allows for a device to be able to send out data to the cloud for processing sparingly, as needed, without needing all the data to be consolidated in one single place.
What is VDI?
Virtual desktop infrastructure.
VDI is typically a descriptor for when you are using a THIN CLIENT and all of your computing is done in the cloud. Your local device would just be a keyboard, mouse, and screen.
This device will typically have just enough computing power to be able to reach out to a desktop that is running in the cloud.
Rather than computing power, the focus shifts to ensuring that you have the bandwidth and the speed to be able to support running your desktop in the cloud. Everything happens over the wire.
What is DaaS?
Desktop as a service. This is a VDI that is being run in the cloud and as a service being provided to you, without the need for having this machine in front of you, and is typically interfaced through a web browser or an application.
What is containerization?
Containerization takes the concept of virtualization and reduces the needed computing power. Rather than having to run an entire separate operating system for each instance, you can load up individual applications inside of a piece of software(think docker) with just the resources that application needs to function inside a sandbox. You can also stop these applications from being able to communicate with one another, they exist in their own separate container, and have no idea the other containers exist.
It is also incredibly portable since they are in a standardized format. You can take the image off of one system and onto another.
What is the difference between the monolithic application architecture and a microservice architecture?
While a monolithic application which we commonly use in our day to day life has a giant code base and is one self contained giant unit, a microservice architecture breaks everything down into much smaller pieces.
In a microservice architecture an application uses APIs(application programming intefaces) to break up the application into individual services. These are Microservices. There is usually an API gateway that manages the communications between the client we are using on our systems and all the different functions built into this application. There might be different databases or shared databases that is able to be used through this API gateway.
It is incredibly easy to add new microservices or increase the scalability.
It also makes it so one microservice breaks down won’t cause the entire application to fail.
It also allows much tighter control of data security.
