IT Cloud Computing & Virtualization 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which containerization technology packages an application and its dependencies into a portable, lightweight unit that can run consistently across different environments?
- Virtual machine snapshot
- Docker container (Correct answer)
- Hypervisor image
- RAID array
Correct answer: Docker container
Docker containers package an application with all its dependencies into a standardized unit, ensuring consistent behavior regardless of the environment in which they run.
Question 2: What is the key difference between containers and virtual machines?
- Containers require a full OS for each instance while VMs share the host OS kernel
- Containers share the host OS kernel while VMs run a full separate OS per instance (Correct answer)
- Containers cannot be networked while VMs can
- Containers always use more memory than VMs
Correct answer: Containers share the host OS kernel while VMs run a full separate OS per instance
Containers share the host operating system kernel and isolate at the application layer, making them more lightweight than VMs, which each run a full OS instance.
Question 3: In cloud computing, what is a 'availability zone'?
- A pricing tier for cloud resources
- An isolated location within a cloud region with independent power and networking (Correct answer)
- A security boundary separating customer accounts
- A type of CDN node for content delivery
Correct answer: An isolated location within a cloud region with independent power and networking
An availability zone is one or more discrete data centers within a cloud region that have redundant power, networking, and connectivity, designed to be isolated from failures in other zones.
Question 4: Which cloud cost model charges customers only for the computing resources they actually consume, typically measured by the hour or minute?
- Spot pricing
- Reserved instance pricing
- Pay-as-you-go pricing (Correct answer)
- Dedicated host pricing
Correct answer: Pay-as-you-go pricing
Pay-as-you-go pricing charges customers based on actual resource consumption (compute time, storage used, data transferred), with no upfront commitment required.
Question 5: What is 'Infrastructure as Code' (IaC) in the context of cloud computing?
- Writing application code that runs only on cloud servers
- Managing and provisioning cloud infrastructure through machine-readable configuration files (Correct answer)
- Converting physical servers into virtual machines automatically
- A billing model based on infrastructure usage
Correct answer: Managing and provisioning cloud infrastructure through machine-readable configuration files
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) uses configuration files (such as Terraform or CloudFormation templates) to define, provision, and manage cloud infrastructure in a repeatable and version-controlled way.
Question 6: Which service is responsible for distributing incoming network traffic across multiple servers to ensure no single server becomes overwhelmed?
- DNS resolver
- Load balancer (Correct answer)
- CDN edge node
- NAT gateway
Correct answer: Load balancer
A load balancer distributes incoming requests across multiple backend servers to maximize throughput, minimize response time, and avoid overloading any single server.
Question 7: What is 'serverless computing' in a cloud environment?
- Running applications without any servers in existence
- A model where the cloud provider manages server provisioning and the customer only writes functions (Correct answer)
- A type of bare-metal server rental
- Computing done entirely on the client device
Correct answer: A model where the cloud provider manages server provisioning and the customer only writes functions
Serverless computing is a model where the cloud provider automatically provisions, scales, and manages the infrastructure, and customers deploy code as functions that run in response to events.
IT Cloud Computing & Virtualization 2
Which containerization technology packages an application and its dependencies into a portable, lightweight unit that can run consistently across different environments?