IKM Cloud Computing Fundamentals — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which cloud service model provides virtualized compute, storage and networking, leaving the customer to manage the operating system and applications?
- SaaS
- PaaS
- IaaS (Correct answer)
- FaaS
Correct answer: IaaS
Infrastructure as a Service gives the customer virtual machines, storage and networks, and the customer manages everything above the hypervisor, including the OS. PaaS and SaaS abstract progressively more of the stack.
Question 2: Which NIST essential cloud characteristic means that resources can be provisioned and released automatically as demand changes?
- Rapid elasticity (Correct answer)
- Measured service
- Resource pooling
- Broad network access
Correct answer: Rapid elasticity
Rapid elasticity lets capacity scale out and in automatically with demand, and to the consumer it often looks unlimited. Measured service refers to metered usage and billing.
Question 3: A company combines its own on-premises data center with a public cloud and connects them. What is this deployment model called?
- Private cloud
- Community cloud
- Hybrid cloud (Correct answer)
- Multi-tenant cloud
Correct answer: Hybrid cloud
A hybrid cloud combines two or more distinct infrastructures, typically private or on-premises and public, that are bound together so data and applications can move between them.
Question 4: In the shared responsibility model for a public cloud, who is always responsible for the security of the customer's own data and access configuration?
- The cloud provider only
- The customer (Correct answer)
- The internet service provider
- A third-party auditor
Correct answer: The customer
The provider secures the underlying infrastructure, but the customer remains responsible for their data, identity and access management, and configuration. This holds in every service model.
Question 5: Which technology allows multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical host?
- A load balancer
- A hypervisor (Correct answer)
- A content delivery network
- A proxy server
Correct answer: A hypervisor
A hypervisor abstracts the physical hardware and allocates its resources to multiple isolated virtual machines. It is the foundation of most IaaS offerings.
Question 6: What is the main purpose of a load balancer in a cloud application?
- Encrypt data at rest
- Distribute incoming traffic across multiple servers (Correct answer)
- Back up databases
- Store static files
Correct answer: Distribute incoming traffic across multiple servers
A load balancer spreads requests across several instances. This improves availability and performance, and it lets the application scale horizontally.
