220-1101 Virtualization and Cloud Computing Practice Test 4 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company hosts its e-commerce website on a public cloud IaaS platform. During a flash sale, traffic spikes to 10 times the normal volume. The cloud platform automatically provisions additional virtual servers to handle the increased load and then deprovisions them after the sale ends, requiring no manual intervention. Which essential cloud characteristic does this scenario BEST demonstrate?

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

Accepted Answer

Rapid elasticity. The scenario describes the cloud platform automatically scaling virtual server resources up and down in response to demand spikes, with no manual intervention. This is the defining characteristic of rapid elasticity, which allows resources to be provisioned and released elastically, often automatically, to match workload fluctuations. The key is the dynamic scaling triggered by traffic changes, not the mere presence of redundancy or distribution.

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High availability

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Fault tolerance

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Load balancing

Question 2

A company hosts its critical application on a public cloud IaaS platform. The IT team has configured replication of data from the primary cloud region to a secondary region. In the event of a disaster that takes down the primary region, the IT team will manually start the virtual machines in the secondary region using the replicated data. The application will then resume service. Which cloud concept does this configuration BEST describe?

Accepted Answer

Disaster recovery. This scenario describes a disaster recovery (DR) configuration because the application relies on a manual failover process to a secondary region after a catastrophic failure of the primary region. The use of replicated data and manual startup of VMs aligns with a cold standby or pilot light DR model, where recovery time is measured in minutes or hours, not seconds. High availability and fault tolerance require automatic, near-instantaneous failover without human intervention, which is not present here.

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High availability

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Fault tolerance

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Elasticity

Question 3

A company wants to deploy a custom web application in the cloud. The development team wants to focus on writing code and does not want to manage the underlying operating system or runtime environment. The company expects the application to experience unpredictable traffic spikes and requires automatic scaling. Which cloud service model would BEST meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

B. Platform as a Service (PaaS). Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides a managed platform that includes the operating system and runtime environment, allowing developers to focus solely on writing code. It also offers built-in automatic scaling to handle unpredictable traffic spikes without manual intervention, making it the best fit for the described requirements.

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A. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

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C. Software as a Service (SaaS)

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D. Function as a Service (FaaS)

Question 4

A company hosts a critical application on a public cloud platform. The IT team configures the application to run on multiple virtual machines in an auto-scaling group. The cloud platform monitors the health of each instance. If a health check fails, the platform automatically terminates the unhealthy instance and launches a new one to maintain the desired capacity. Which cloud concept does this configuration BEST illustrate?

Accepted Answer

High availability. This configuration best illustrates high availability because the auto-scaling group and health check mechanism ensure that the application remains accessible despite instance failures. By automatically replacing unhealthy instances, the system minimizes downtime and maintains service continuity, which is the core goal of high availability in cloud computing.

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Elasticity

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Fault tolerance

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Disaster recovery

Question 5

A company hosts a web application on a public cloud IaaS platform. During a promotional event, traffic spikes to five times the normal volume. The cloud platform automatically provisions additional virtual machines to handle the load and then deprovisions them when traffic returns to normal. The IT team does not need to perform any manual intervention. Which essential cloud characteristic does this scenario BEST demonstrate?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. The scenario describes automatic provisioning and deprovisioning of virtual machines in response to fluctuating demand, which is the defining characteristic of elasticity in cloud computing. Elasticity specifically refers to the ability to dynamically scale resources up and down automatically, often in near real-time, to match workload changes without manual intervention. This goes beyond mere scalability by including the automatic removal of resources when they are no longer needed, which is exactly what the cloud platform does during the promotional event.

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Scalability

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High availability

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Fault tolerance

Question 6

A small business uses a public cloud IaaS provider to host its website. The business is charged monthly based on the total amount of CPU time, storage capacity used, and data transferred. The business can view detailed usage reports through the provider's portal. Which essential cloud characteristic does this billing model BEST demonstrate?

Accepted Answer

Measured service. The billing model charges based on actual usage metrics (CPU time, storage, data transfer), which is the defining characteristic of measured service. In cloud computing, measured service means that resource usage is monitored, controlled, and reported, enabling pay-per-use billing. This is distinct from simply provisioning resources on demand or pooling them.

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Resource pooling

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Rapid elasticity

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On-demand self-service

Question 7

A technician is setting up two virtual machines on a Type 1 hypervisor. The VMs need to communicate with each other using private IP addresses, and the traffic must remain within the physical host—it must not traverse the physical network. The hypervisor host is connected to the physical network via a single NIC. Which of the following should the technician configure to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

An internal virtual switch. An internal virtual switch on a Type 1 hypervisor allows VMs to communicate using private IP addresses while keeping all traffic within the physical host. Since the switch does not connect to the host's physical NIC, traffic never leaves the host, meeting the requirement that it must not traverse the physical network.

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A virtual network interface card (vNIC) on each VM connected to a bridged adapter

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A NAT network adapter for each VM

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A VLAN ID on the physical switch port that connects to the hypervisor host

Question 8

A company hosts its customer-facing web application on a public cloud IaaS platform. The application runs on multiple virtual machines. The IT team configures the platform to automatically distribute incoming traffic across the healthy VMs and to reroute traffic away from any VM that fails. Which cloud concept does this configuration BEST describe?

Accepted Answer

Load balancing. The configuration described—automatically distributing incoming traffic across healthy VMs and rerouting traffic away from any failed VM—is the definition of load balancing. Load balancers (e.g., HAProxy, AWS ELB, NLB) use health checks (e.g., HTTP 200, TCP SYN) to monitor VM status and remove unhealthy nodes from the pool, ensuring traffic is only sent to responsive instances. This directly matches the scenario of distributing traffic and rerouting on failure.

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Auto-scaling

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High availability

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Elasticity

Question 9

A company hosts a critical web application on a public cloud IaaS platform. The application runs on virtual machines in a single region. The company wants to ensure that the application remains available even if the entire cloud region experiences an outage. They plan to deploy an identical infrastructure in a second region and configure automatic traffic failover. No manual intervention should be required after the failover. Which of the following cloud concepts BEST describes this architecture?

Accepted Answer

High availability. This architecture is best described as high availability because it uses redundant infrastructure in a second region with automatic traffic failover to ensure the application remains accessible during a regional outage. High availability focuses on minimizing downtime by eliminating single points of failure, and the requirement for no manual intervention aligns with an active-passive or active-active HA design using DNS-based or load balancer failover mechanisms.

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Disaster recovery

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Fault tolerance

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Elasticity

Question 10

A company hosts a web application on a public cloud IaaS platform. The application experiences unpredictable traffic spikes. The cloud platform automatically adds virtual machines when CPU usage exceeds 80% and removes them when usage drops below 30%. The IT team does not need to manually approve the additions or removals. Which essential cloud characteristic does this BEST describe?

Accepted Answer

Rapid elasticity. The scenario describes the cloud platform automatically adding and removing virtual machines based on CPU utilization thresholds (80% and 30%) without manual intervention. This is the defining behavior of rapid elasticity, which allows resources to scale out and in automatically to match demand. Unlike on-demand self-service, which focuses on user-initiated provisioning, rapid elasticity emphasizes the system's ability to dynamically adjust capacity without requiring human action.

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On-demand self-service

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Resource pooling

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Measured service

Question 11

A company uses a public cloud IaaS provider. They have deployed a web application across multiple virtual machines in an auto-scaling group. The application requires temporary storage for processing user uploads. The data is only needed while the VM is running and must be deleted when the VM is terminated. The storage must be attached to a single VM and should provide low-latency access. Which cloud storage type should the technician configure?

Accepted Answer

Ephemeral storage (instance store). Ephemeral storage (instance store) is correct because it provides temporary, block-level storage directly attached to a single VM, offering low-latency access. The data is tied to the VM's lifecycle and is automatically deleted when the VM is terminated, matching the requirement for temporary processing of user uploads that must not persist after the VM stops.

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Object storage

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File storage

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Persistent block storage

Question 12

A company hosts its e-commerce web application on a public cloud IaaS platform. The application experiences unpredictable traffic spikes throughout the day. The cloud platform is configured to automatically add virtual machines when the average CPU utilization exceeds 80% and to remove virtual machines when utilization drops below 30%. The IT team does not need to manually approve these additions or removals. Which of the following essential cloud characteristics does this scenario BEST demonstrate?

Accepted Answer

Rapid elasticity. The scenario describes automatic scaling of virtual machines in response to CPU utilization thresholds, with no manual intervention required. This directly demonstrates rapid elasticity, which is the ability to quickly scale resources up or down to meet demand, often automatically. The unpredictable traffic spikes and the automatic addition/removal of VMs are the hallmark of this essential cloud characteristic.

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Metered service

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Resource pooling

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On-demand self-service

Question 13

A company hosts its web application on a public cloud IaaS platform. To ensure availability in case an entire cloud region fails, the company deploys identical infrastructure in two separate regions and configures a traffic management service that automatically routes all user traffic to the healthy region. The secondary region does not normally handle traffic. This architecture is an example of which of the following?

Accepted Answer

Active-passive failover. This architecture is an active-passive failover because the secondary region remains idle (passive) until a failure in the primary region triggers automatic traffic redirection via the traffic management service. The key characteristic is that only one region handles user traffic at a time, with the passive region standing by to take over, ensuring availability during a full cloud region outage.

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Active-active load balancing

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Disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS)

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High availability across availability zones

Question 14

A company wants to migrate its on-premises email system to the cloud. They require a solution where the cloud provider manages the email servers, software updates, security patches, and storage infrastructure, while the company retains control over user accounts, mailbox policies, and email content. Which cloud service model BEST fits these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Software as a Service (SaaS). Software as a Service (SaaS) delivers a complete, managed application to end users. In this scenario, the cloud provider handles all underlying infrastructure, including email servers, software updates, security patches, and storage, while the customer retains administrative control over user accounts, mailbox policies, and email content. This matches the definition of SaaS, where the provider manages the entire application stack and the customer only manages application-level settings.

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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 15

A small e-commerce company hosts its website on a public cloud IaaS platform. During a promotional sale, traffic increases dramatically. The cloud platform automatically provisions additional virtual machines within minutes to handle the load. The company only pays for the additional resources used during that time. Which essential cloud characteristic does this scenario BEST demonstrate?

Accepted Answer

Rapid elasticity. The scenario describes the cloud platform automatically provisioning additional virtual machines within minutes to handle a sudden traffic spike, and the company only paying for the extra resources used during that time. This directly demonstrates rapid elasticity, which is the ability to scale resources up or down automatically and quickly in response to demand. The key is the automatic scaling and the pay-per-use model for the additional capacity, which are hallmarks of elasticity in cloud computing.

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On-demand self-service

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Measured service

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Resource pooling