220-1101 Virtualization and Cloud Computing Practice Test 12 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company runs a private cloud for its internal applications. During peak business hours, the IT team notices that some virtual machines (VMs) become slow due to high CPU and memory demand. The team wants the cloud infrastructure to automatically increase resources to the VMs when demand spikes and reduce them when demand drops, without manual intervention. Which cloud computing characteristic BEST describes this capability?

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

Accepted Answer

Rapid elasticity. Rapid elasticity is the cloud characteristic that enables automatic, seamless scaling of resources (such as CPU and memory) up or down in response to demand spikes or drops, without manual intervention. In this scenario, the private cloud infrastructure must dynamically allocate additional compute capacity to VMs during peak hours and reduce it when demand subsides, which is the precise definition of rapid elasticity. This is typically implemented through orchestration tools like VMware vSphere DRS or OpenStack Heat, which monitor utilization metrics and trigger scaling actions via APIs.

Answer

Resource pooling

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Measured service

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On-demand self-service

Question 2

A company needs to run a legacy application that requires a specific version of a Linux kernel that is not supported by the current physical server's hardware. The IT team wants to use virtualization to run this application on the existing server. Which virtualization technology would BEST allow this?

Accepted Answer

Full virtualization. Full virtualization allows a guest operating system to run unmodified on top of a hypervisor by abstracting the underlying hardware completely. In this scenario, the legacy application requires a specific Linux kernel version that the physical server's hardware does not support; full virtualization enables the hypervisor to present a virtualized hardware environment that is compatible with that kernel, regardless of the actual physical hardware. Technologies like VMware ESXi or KVM with hardware-assisted virtualization (Intel VT-x/AMD-V) provide this capability without requiring any modifications to the guest OS.

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Paravirtualization

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Containerization

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Emulation

Question 3

A systems administrator manages a virtualized environment with a hypervisor hosting multiple virtual machines (VMs). A critical database VM experiences performance degradation during peak hours because other VMs consume a large amount of CPU resources. The administrator wants to ensure that the database VM always receives at least 2 vCPUs worth of processing power, regardless of the demand from other VMs. Which virtualization feature should the administrator configure?

Accepted Answer

Resource reservation. Resource reservation guarantees a minimum amount of CPU capacity (in MHz or vCPUs) to a specific VM, ensuring the database VM always has at least 2 vCPUs worth of processing power even when other VMs are highly active. This feature is configured on the hypervisor (e.g., VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V) and prevents resource starvation by reserving physical CPU cycles for that VM.

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Load balancing

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CPU affinity

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Dynamic memory allocation

Question 4

A company needs to deploy a cloud environment where the IT team can create virtual machines, configure virtual networks and firewalls, and install custom operating systems, all without managing any physical servers or networking hardware. Which cloud service model BEST meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides on-demand access to virtualized computing resources such as virtual machines, virtual networks, and firewalls, while abstracting the underlying physical hardware. The IT team retains full control over the operating system and network configuration without managing physical servers or networking hardware, which directly matches the requirement.

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Platform as a Service (PaaS)

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Software as a Service (SaaS)

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Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

Question 5

A company runs a critical database application on a virtual machine (VM) hosted on a Type 1 hypervisor. During peak hours, other VMs on the same host consume large amounts of CPU and memory, causing the database VM to experience performance degradation. The administrator wants to guarantee that the database VM always receives at least 4 GB of RAM and 2 vCPUs of processing power, regardless of demand from other VMs. Which virtualization feature should the administrator configure?

Accepted Answer

Resource reservation. Resource reservation guarantees a minimum amount of CPU and memory resources to a specific VM, ensuring that the database VM always has at least 4 GB of RAM and 2 vCPUs available even when other VMs on the same Type 1 hypervisor are under heavy load. This feature prevents performance degradation by locking those resources for the reserved VM, regardless of demand from other guests.

Answer

Resource pooling

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Elasticity

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Thin provisioning

Question 6

A systems administrator manages a virtualized environment with a Type 1 hypervisor hosting multiple virtual machines (VMs). The physical host has 64 GB of RAM and a 4-core CPU with hyper-threading. The administrator notices that during peak hours, some VMs become slow because others consume a disproportionate share of resources. The administrator wants to configure the hypervisor to combine the physical memory and CPU of the host into a single pool that can be dynamically allocated to VMs as needed. Which virtualization concept BEST describes this capability?

Accepted Answer

Resource pooling. Resource pooling is the virtualization concept where the hypervisor aggregates physical resources (CPU, memory) from the host into a shared pool, then dynamically allocates them to VMs based on demand. In a Type 1 hypervisor, this allows the administrator to set shares, reservations, and limits, ensuring that no single VM can monopolize resources during peak hours. This directly addresses the problem of disproportionate resource consumption by enabling elastic allocation.

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High availability

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Fault tolerance

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Snapshotting

Question 7

A company uses a private cloud platform to provide development and test environments. Developers frequently need to create new virtual machines (VMs) quickly for various projects. The cloud platform allows developers to provision VMs from pre-configured templates that include the OS and required applications, without any interaction from the IT team. Which cloud computing characteristic does this capability BEST represent?

Accepted Answer

On-demand self-service. The capability described allows developers to provision VMs from pre-configured templates without any IT interaction. This directly aligns with on-demand self-service, a core NIST-defined characteristic of cloud computing where a consumer can unilaterally provision computing resources automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider.

Answer

Rapid elasticity

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Resource pooling

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Measured service

Question 8

A company runs a private cloud infrastructure for its internal applications. During seasonal sales events, demand for computing resources doubles. The IT team wants to automatically expand the private cloud by utilizing a public cloud provider during these peak periods, and then scale back when demand normalizes. Which cloud computing concept does this scenario BEST describe?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. This scenario describes elasticity, which is the ability of a cloud system to dynamically scale resources up or down based on demand. The private cloud automatically expands into a public cloud (cloud bursting) during peak periods and scales back when demand normalizes, matching the definition of elasticity.

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High availability

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Load balancing

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Disaster recovery

Question 9

A company runs a Type 1 hypervisor with several production virtual machines (VMs). The physical host has 64 GB of RAM. The administrator observes that the host’s memory usage is consistently at 95%, leaving no free memory for a new VM that needs 8 GB. However, the existing VMs are only using about 50% of their allocated memory. Which hypervisor technology can the administrator use to run the new VM without adding physical RAM?

Accepted Answer

Memory overcommitment with ballooning. Memory overcommitment with ballooning allows the hypervisor to reclaim unused memory from running VMs by using a balloon driver that inflates inside the guest OS, forcing the guest to release memory pages back to the hypervisor. This reclaimed memory can then be allocated to the new VM without adding physical RAM. The scenario describes existing VMs using only 50% of their allocated memory, making ballooning an ideal solution to free up the needed 8 GB.

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Thin provisioning

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vMotion

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Memory mirroring

Question 10

A company runs a critical database application on a virtual machine (VM) hosted on a Type 1 hypervisor. During peak business hours, other VMs on the same host consume large amounts of CPU and memory, causing the database VM to experience performance degradation. The administrator wants to ensure the database VM always receives at least 4 GB of RAM and 2 vCPUs of processing power, even when other VMs are competing for resources. Which virtualization feature should the administrator configure?

Accepted Answer

Resource reservation. Resource reservation guarantees that a specific VM always receives a minimum amount of CPU and memory resources, even when other VMs on the same host compete for those resources. In this scenario, setting a reservation of 4 GB RAM and 2 vCPUs ensures the database VM never falls below that threshold, preventing performance degradation during peak usage.

Answer

Resource pooling

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High availability

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Elasticity

Question 11

A company uses a cloud platform where users can provision virtual servers and storage through a web portal without any human interaction with the IT staff. This capability is an example of which cloud computing characteristic?

Accepted Answer

On-demand self-service. The scenario describes users provisioning virtual servers and storage through a web portal without any human interaction with IT staff. This directly aligns with the NIST definition of on-demand self-service, where a consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider. The key phrase 'without any human interaction' is the hallmark of this characteristic.

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Broad network access

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Resource pooling

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Measured service

Question 12

A systems administrator manages a cluster of three physical hosts running a Type 1 hypervisor. The administrator wants to ensure that if any single host fails, the virtual machines on that host are automatically restarted on another host in the cluster without manual intervention. Which of the following virtualization features should the administrator implement?

Accepted Answer

High availability. High availability (HA) is the correct feature because it automatically restarts virtual machines on a surviving host when a physical host in a cluster fails. In a Type 1 hypervisor cluster, HA continuously monitors host heartbeats and, upon detecting a failure, triggers the restart of affected VMs on another host without manual intervention. This directly satisfies the requirement for automatic recovery from a single host failure.

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Load balancing

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Snapshots

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Live migration

Question 13

A cloud administrator configures a virtual machine so that it automatically increases its allocated CPU and RAM resources during peak demand and reduces them during low usage periods without any manual intervention. Which cloud computing characteristic does this configuration BEST represent?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. Elasticity is the cloud characteristic that enables automatic scaling of resources (CPU, RAM) up and down in response to demand, without manual intervention. This configuration specifically matches elasticity because it adjusts resources dynamically during peak and low usage periods, which is distinct from the broader planning capability of scalability.

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Scalability

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Resource pooling

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Metered service

Question 14

A company runs a web application on a virtual machine in a public cloud. During a marketing campaign, the application experiences a sudden spike in traffic. The cloud platform automatically adds more virtual server instances to handle the load and then removes them when traffic subsides. Which cloud computing characteristic does this represent?

Accepted Answer

Rapid elasticity. Rapid elasticity is the cloud characteristic that enables resources to scale out (add instances) and scale in (remove instances) automatically in response to demand spikes, such as during a marketing campaign. This is distinct from resource pooling, which refers to multi-tenant sharing of physical infrastructure, not dynamic scaling.

Answer

Resource pooling

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Measured service

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On-demand self-service

Question 15

A system administrator deploys a Type 1 hypervisor on a physical host with 16 GB of RAM. The administrator creates four virtual machines, each configured with 8 GB of allocated memory. Despite the total allocation being 32 GB, all four VMs operate normally without any performance degradation. The administrator checks and sees that the host's memory usage is steady at 85%. Which virtualization feature is MOST likely enabling this configuration?

Accepted Answer

Memory overcommitment. Memory overcommitment allows a hypervisor to allocate more virtual memory to VMs than the physical host actually has, relying on the fact that VMs rarely use their full allocation simultaneously. In this scenario, the host has 16 GB of RAM but the VMs are configured with a total of 32 GB; the hypervisor (Type 1) uses memory overcommitment to assign only the memory actually needed by each VM, keeping host usage at 85% (approximately 13.6 GB) without performance degradation.

Answer

Memory ballooning

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Dynamic memory allocation

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Virtual memory paging