220-1101 Virtualization and Cloud Computing — 40 Questions

Question 1

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?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

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. This is achieved by mapping the physical GPU directly to the VM, allowing it to use native GPU drivers without emulation.

Answer

Shared GPU acceleration

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Virtual GPU (vGPU)

Answer

RemoteFX

Question 2

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

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). 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.

Answer

Software as a Service (SaaS)

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Platform as a Service (PaaS)

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Private Cloud

Question 3

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

Improved performance due to direct access to physical hardware without a host operating system. 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.

Answer

Lower licensing costs compared to Type 2 hypervisors

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Easier to install and configure than Type 2 hypervisors

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Supports a wider variety of guest operating systems

Question 4

A company wants to ensure that its cloud-based application remains available even if an entire data center goes offline. The company deploys the application across multiple geographically separate data centers operated by the cloud provider. Which cloud concept is the company implementing?

Accepted Answer

High availability. High availability is the correct answer because the company is deploying redundant resources across multiple geographically separate data centers to ensure the application remains available even if one data center fails. This is a classic high availability design, which minimizes downtime by providing failover mechanisms. Fault tolerance is a more advanced term that typically implies zero downtime, but it is not covered in CompTIA A+ objectives.

Answer

Load balancing

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Elasticity

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Fault tolerance

Question 5

A company hosts a production database on a public cloud IaaS platform. The database requires consistent low-latency access to a storage volume that can be attached to a single virtual machine. The volume must persist independently of the VM's lifecycle, meaning data should remain intact even if the VM is stopped and started. The workload requires up to 10,000 IOPS. Which of the following cloud storage types should the technician configure to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

C. The explanation correctly identifies persistent SSD block storage, but it does not explicitly connect it to option C, and the missing option text makes the answer unverifiable.

Answer

A

Answer

B

Answer

D

Question 6

A systems administrator is configuring virtual machines on a Type 1 hypervisor. The physical host has one CPU with 4 physical cores and Hyper-Threading enabled, providing 8 logical processors. The administrator creates a virtual machine for a database application that is known to be CPU-intensive. The administrator assigns 6 virtual CPUs to this VM. After deployment, users report the database VM is performing very poorly, even though the host's overall CPU utilization is only 40%. What is the most likely cause of the poor performance?

Accepted Answer

B. The physical host has only 8 logical processors (4 cores × 2 threads each). Assigning 6 virtual CPUs to a single VM means that VM will compete for CPU scheduler time across those 8 logical processors. However, because the VM has more vCPUs than physical cores (6 vCPUs vs 4 cores), the hypervisor must time-slice heavily, causing CPU scheduling overhead and cache thrashing. Even at 40% host utilization, the VM's performance suffers because the hypervisor cannot efficiently schedule 6 vCPUs across only 4 physical cores without significant context-switching and resource contention.

Answer

A

Answer

C

Answer

D

Question 7

A company hosts a critical database on a virtual machine (VM) in a public cloud. The database uses a persistent block storage volume. The IT team needs to move the database to a new VM with more vCPUs and RAM in a different availability zone within the same region. The cloud provider does not support live migration across availability zones. Which of the following procedures will achieve the migration with the LEAST amount of downtime?

Accepted Answer

Set up database replication between the current VM and a new VM in the target zone, then fail over abruptly.. The goal is to minimize downtime when moving a database to a new VM in a different availability zone. Option D (database replication) keeps the new VM's database continuously synchronized with the current one, allowing a very brief cutover/failover. In contrast, Option B requires stopping the database, detaching the volume, taking a snapshot, creating and attaching a new volume, and restarting the database — all of which causes significantly more downtime. Option A requires exporting/importing the VM while offline. Option C relies on a third-party tool that may not be supported or reliable given the provider constraint. Therefore, D is the correct answer.

Answer

Export the current VM as a virtual appliance, import it in the target availability zone, and assign the existing static IP to the new VM.

Answer

Detach the block storage volume, create a snapshot, launch a new VM in the target availability zone, create a new volume from the snapshot, and attach it to the new VM.

Answer

Use a third-party live migration tool that supports cross-zone VM migration without downtime.

Question 8

A company runs a batch processing job on a virtual machine in a public cloud. The job runs once a month and requires significant CPU and RAM resources for about 2 hours. The company wants to minimize cost while ensuring the resources are available when needed. Which cloud characteristic should they leverage?

Accepted Answer

On-demand self-service. On-demand self-service is the ability to provision and release computing resources as needed without requiring human interaction. For a batch job that runs once a month for 2 hours, the company can spin up a VM with the required CPU/RAM just before the job and delete it afterwards, paying only for the 2 hours of usage. Rapid elasticity refers to the rapid scaling of resources based on demand, which is unnecessary for a fixed, predictable workload and may leave resources running (at a smaller size) when not in use, incurring idle costs.

Answer

Rapid elasticity

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Measured service

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Resource pooling

Question 9

A company runs a web application on a virtual machine (VM) in a public cloud. The application experiences a sudden spike in traffic lasting about 45 minutes every day at lunchtime. The VM currently has 4 vCPUs and 8 GB of RAM, which is sufficient for normal traffic but causes slow response times during the spike. The company wants to ensure the application performs well during spikes without permanently upgrading the VM to larger resources. Which cloud characteristic should the administrator use to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. Elasticity is the correct cloud characteristic because it allows the VM to automatically scale resources up during the 45-minute lunchtime traffic spike and scale back down afterward, matching demand without manual intervention. This ensures performance during the spike while avoiding the cost of a permanent upgrade, as the VM can dynamically adjust vCPUs and RAM based on predefined policies or metrics like CPU utilization.

Answer

Scalability

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Metered service

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High availability

Question 10

A company deploys a stateful web application on multiple virtual machines in a public cloud behind a load balancer. The application experiences unpredictable traffic spikes. During a spike, the load balancer distributes requests evenly, but users report that they are randomly logged out or lose session data such as shopping cart contents. The application is designed to store session state locally on each server. Which of the following should the administrator implement to resolve this issue?

Accepted Answer

Configure sticky sessions (session affinity) on the load balancer.. The application stores session state locally on each VM. Without sticky sessions (session affinity), the load balancer distributes each request to any VM, causing users to lose their session if a subsequent request lands on a different server. Enabling sticky sessions ensures all requests from a user are sent to the same VM, preserving the locally stored session data.

Answer

Increase the number of VM instances.

Answer

Implement a shared database for session storage.

Answer

Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) on the load balancer.

Question 11

A company runs a web application on a virtual machine in a public cloud IaaS environment. The application experiences unpredictable traffic spikes lasting 10–15 minutes. The company wants to automatically add more VM instances during spikes and remove them when traffic subsides, paying only for the resources used. Which cloud characteristic should the administrator configure to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. Elasticity is the cloud characteristic that automatically scales resources up or down based on demand, enabling the company to add VM instances during traffic spikes and remove them when traffic subsides, paying only for what is used. This matches the requirement for handling unpredictable, short-duration spikes (10–15 minutes) in an IaaS environment.

Answer

High availability

Answer

Fault tolerance

Answer

Load balancing

Question 12

A systems administrator is migrating on-premises servers to a cloud environment. The administrator needs to ensure that the virtual machines in the cloud are isolated from each other by network segmentation but can communicate with specific on-premises servers through a secure encrypted tunnel. Which of the following should the administrator configure in the cloud?

Accepted Answer

A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) with subnets and a VPN gateway. A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) provides network isolation through logically defined subnets, and a VPN gateway establishes an encrypted tunnel (typically using IPsec) to securely connect the cloud VPC to on-premises servers. This combination meets the requirements of network segmentation and secure communication without exposing resources to the public internet.

Answer

A virtual switch with VLAN tagging and a proxy server

Answer

A network address translation (NAT) gateway and a DMZ

Answer

A load balancer and a firewall appliance

Question 13

A company is migrating its email server to the cloud. Compliance regulations require that the company's server operating system and data must be isolated from other customers. The company wants dedicated server resources but does not need physical hardware control. Which cloud service model meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Private cloud. A private cloud is the correct choice because it provides dedicated, isolated resources for a single organization, meeting compliance requirements for data and OS isolation without requiring physical hardware control. Unlike public clouds, a private cloud can be hosted on-premises or by a third-party provider, offering dedicated servers and hypervisor-level isolation (e.g., VMware vSphere or Hyper-V) that ensures no other customer shares the same compute or storage infrastructure.

Answer

Public Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Answer

Community cloud

Answer

Hybrid cloud

Question 14

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.

Answer

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Answer

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Answer

Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

Question 15

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.

Answer

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Answer

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Answer

Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

Question 16

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.

Answer

PaaS

Answer

SaaS

Answer

DaaS

Question 17

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.

Answer

High availability

Answer

Fault tolerance

Answer

Resource pooling

Question 18

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.

Answer

The hypervisor's CPU core count

Answer

The storage I/O bandwidth

Answer

The network interface card speed

Question 19

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?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

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.

Answer

Add more RAM to the hypervisor host.

Answer

Add additional CPU cores to the hypervisor host.

Answer

Enable memory overcommitment on the hypervisor.

Question 20

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.

Answer

Rapid elasticity

Answer

On-demand self-service

Answer

Resource pooling