220-1101 Virtualization and Cloud Computing — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company wants to migrate its on-premises email server to the cloud. The IT director insists that the new solution require no management of the underlying operating system, application server, or patching. Which cloud service model should the organization choose?

Accepted Answer

Software as a Service (SaaS). Software as a Service (SaaS) provides a fully managed application delivered over the internet. The provider handles all underlying infrastructure, operating system, application server, and patching, meeting the IT director's requirement for zero management of those layers. In this scenario, the email service is consumed as a ready-to-use application, such as Microsoft 365 Exchange Online or Google Workspace.

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Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

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Platform as a Service (PaaS)

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Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

Question 2

A company wants to migrate a custom-developed web application to the cloud. The IT team needs full control over the operating system, middleware, and runtime environment but does not want to manage physical hardware or the underlying virtualization layer. Which cloud service model should the organization choose?

Accepted Answer

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides virtualized computing resources over the internet, giving the customer full control over the operating system, middleware, and runtime environment while abstracting away the physical hardware and underlying virtualization layer. This matches the requirement for complete control without managing the physical infrastructure.

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Software as a Service (SaaS)

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Platform as a Service (PaaS)

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Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

Question 3

A company hosts a critical database server on-premises. They want to migrate to a cloud solution that allows them to retain full administrative control over the operating system, database software, and security patches, but they do not want to manage the physical server hardware, rack space, or network cabling. Which cloud service model should they choose?

Accepted Answer

IaaS. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) is the correct choice because it provides virtualized computing resources over the internet, including virtual machines, storage, and networking. The customer retains full administrative control over the operating system, database software, and security patches, while the cloud provider manages the physical server hardware, rack space, and network cabling. This matches the requirement of full OS and application control without physical infrastructure management.

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PaaS

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SaaS

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DaaS

Question 4

A company runs its e-commerce platform on a private cloud but expects a large traffic spike during a promotional event. They want to automatically add additional virtual servers from a public cloud provider during the peak and release them afterward. Which cloud computing characteristic best describes this capability?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. Elasticity is the cloud computing characteristic that allows resources to be automatically scaled up or down based on demand. In this scenario, the company uses a hybrid cloud model where additional virtual servers from a public cloud provider are provisioned during a traffic spike and released afterward, which is the definition of elasticity. This contrasts with scalability, which is the ability to handle growth over time, as elasticity specifically addresses dynamic, automated scaling to match fluctuating workloads.

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High availability

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Fault tolerance

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Resource pooling

Question 5

A company uses a private cloud with 10 virtual servers running on a single hypervisor host. The VMs are configured with dynamic memory allocation. Recently, performance has degraded, and the hypervisor shows 90% memory utilization. The IT team wants to add two more VMs without purchasing additional hardware. Which of the following is the most likely limiting factor?

Accepted Answer

The total physical RAM installed in the host. The hypervisor shows 90% memory utilization, and dynamic memory allocation allows VMs to share physical RAM. Adding two more VMs without increasing physical memory will likely exhaust the host's RAM, causing excessive swapping or out-of-memory conditions. This makes total physical RAM the most likely limiting factor.

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The hypervisor's CPU core count

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The storage I/O bandwidth

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The network interface card speed

Question 6

A company runs multiple virtual machines (VMs) on a single hypervisor host for development and testing. Users report that the VMs are performing poorly. The administrator checks the host and sees that CPU utilization is at 40% and memory utilization is at 50%, but disk I/O latency is extremely high. The host has a single SATA SSD that stores all VM disk files. Which of the following actions would MOST likely improve performance?

Accepted Answer

Use a separate SSD for each VM to distribute I/O load.. The host has a single SATA SSD storing all VM disk files, and disk I/O latency is extremely high despite low CPU and memory utilization. This indicates a storage bottleneck where all VMs contend for the same disk. Using a separate SSD for each VM distributes the I/O load across multiple physical drives, reducing contention and improving performance.

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Add more RAM to the hypervisor host.

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Add additional CPU cores to the hypervisor host.

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Enable memory overcommitment on the hypervisor.

Question 7

A company runs multiple virtual machines on a single hypervisor host running a Type 2 hypervisor on a Windows Server. The IT team needs to give a graphics-intensive VM direct access to the physical GPU for CAD rendering. Which of the following technologies should be implemented?

Accepted Answer

GPU passthrough. GPU passthrough (also known as PCI passthrough or VMDirectPath) assigns the entire physical GPU to a single virtual machine, bypassing the hypervisor's abstraction layer. This gives the VM direct hardware access for maximum graphics performance, which is essential for CAD rendering. On a Type 2 hypervisor (e.g., Hyper-V on Windows Server), this is achieved via Discrete Device Assignment (DDA) or SR-IOV, allowing the VM to use native GPU drivers without emulation.

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Shared GPU acceleration

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Virtual GPU (vGPU)

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RemoteFX

Question 8

A company uses a public cloud IaaS provider. They are billed monthly based on the total hours their virtual machines are running and the amount of block storage allocated. Which cloud computing characteristic does this billing model represent?

Accepted Answer

Metered service. The billing model described—charging based on total hours VMs are running and the amount of block storage allocated—directly corresponds to metered service. In cloud computing, metered service (also called pay-per-use or measured service) means the provider tracks resource consumption (e.g., compute hours, storage GB-months) and bills accordingly. This is a core characteristic of cloud computing as defined by NIST SP 800-145, enabling usage-based cost allocation.

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Rapid elasticity

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On-demand self-service

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Resource pooling

Question 9

A company hosts a database virtual machine in a public IaaS cloud. The VM is experiencing slow performance due to high disk I/O latency. The administrator wants to improve performance without changing the VM size (vCPU or RAM). Which of the following actions would MOST likely resolve the issue?

Accepted Answer

Migrate the VM to a storage tier with higher IOPS. Migrating the VM to a storage tier with higher IOPS directly addresses the high disk I/O latency by providing faster data access at the storage layer. Since the VM size (vCPU/RAM) remains unchanged, improving the underlying storage performance is the most effective way to reduce latency without altering compute resources.

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Increase the amount of RAM allocated to the VM

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Add more vCPUs to the VM

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Enable nested virtualization on the host

Question 10

A company plans to run multiple virtual servers on a single physical host to reduce hardware costs. The IT team wants direct hardware access for each virtual machine to maximize performance and minimize latency. Which of the following is the most appropriate hypervisor type to deploy?

Accepted Answer

Type 1 hypervisor (bare-metal) installed directly on the server hardware.. A Type 1 hypervisor (bare-metal) runs directly on the physical hardware without an underlying operating system, allowing each virtual machine to have direct, low-latency access to CPU, memory, and I/O devices. This architecture minimizes overhead and maximizes performance, making it the ideal choice when the requirement is direct hardware access for each VM.

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Type 2 hypervisor installed on top of a general-purpose operating system.

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Container-based virtualization running on the host OS.

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A virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution.

Question 11

A company is migrating its on-premises web servers to the cloud. They want to maintain full control over the operating system, web server software, and security configurations, but they do not want to manage the underlying physical hardware, storage, or network infrastructure. Which cloud service model best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides virtualized computing resources over the internet, allowing the company to deploy and manage their own operating systems, web server software, and security configurations while the cloud provider handles the underlying physical hardware, storage, and network infrastructure. This matches the requirement for full control over the OS and software stack without managing physical components.

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Software as a Service (SaaS)

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Platform as a Service (PaaS)

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Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

Question 12

A company hosts its web servers on a public cloud IaaS platform. They want to ensure that if the physical host running one of their virtual machines fails, the VM automatically restarts on another healthy physical host within the same cloud provider's infrastructure. Which cloud computing characteristic makes this possible?

Accepted Answer

High availability. High availability (C) is the correct answer because it refers to a system's ability to remain operational and automatically recover from failures. In this scenario, the automatic restart of a VM on a healthy physical host after a host failure is a direct implementation of high availability, often achieved through features like VMware vSphere HA or Microsoft Hyper-V Failover Clustering, which monitor host health and restart VMs on surviving hosts.

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Rapid elasticity

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Resource pooling

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Measured service

Question 13

A company runs multiple virtual machines on a single hypervisor host using a Type 2 hypervisor. The IT manager wants to migrate to a Type 1 hypervisor to improve performance and reduce overhead. Which of the following is a key advantage of using a Type 1 hypervisor in this scenario?

Accepted Answer

It runs directly on the hardware, providing more resources to VMs.. A Type 1 hypervisor (bare-metal) runs directly on the host hardware without an underlying operating system, eliminating the overhead of a host OS. This direct access to physical resources (CPU, memory, I/O) allows virtual machines to achieve near-native performance and reduces resource contention, which directly addresses the company's goal of improving performance and reducing overhead.

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It can run on any commodity hardware without specific requirements.

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It allows running Windows and Linux on the same host.

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It does not require a separate management console.

Question 14

A small business is migrating its on-premises file server to a cloud service. The company wants full control over the operating system, file-sharing permissions, and security settings, but does not want to manage the physical server hardware, storage arrays, or network infrastructure. Which of the following cloud service models BEST meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

B. Option B corresponds to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), which provides virtualized computing resources over the internet. With IaaS, the customer manages the operating system, applications, and security settings, while the cloud provider handles the underlying physical hardware, storage, and network infrastructure. This matches the requirement for full control over the OS and permissions without managing physical hardware.

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A

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C

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D

Question 15

An IT department runs several virtualized database servers on a single physical host using a Type 2 hypervisor. They plan to replace the Type 2 hypervisor with a Type 1 hypervisor to improve performance. Which of the following is a primary advantage of a Type 1 hypervisor in this scenario?

Accepted Answer

B. A Type 1 hypervisor (bare-metal) runs directly on the physical hardware without a host OS, eliminating the overhead of an intermediate operating system layer. This reduces latency and CPU/memory consumption, directly improving performance for virtualized database servers compared to a Type 2 hypervisor that relies on a host OS for resource management.

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A

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C

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D