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

Question 1

A company uses a public cloud IaaS provider. A developer needs to create a new virtual machine for testing. The developer logs into the cloud management console, selects the desired OS and size, and launches the VM. The VM is ready within minutes. No interaction with the cloud provider's staff is required. Which cloud computing characteristic does this best represent?

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

Accepted Answer

On-demand self-service. The scenario describes a user provisioning a virtual machine without any human interaction with the cloud provider, which is the defining characteristic of on-demand self-service. This capability is a core NIST definition of cloud computing, allowing users to automatically provision computing resources as needed without requiring service provider intervention.

Answer

Resource pooling

Answer

Rapid elasticity

Answer

Measured service

Question 2

A company wants to move its email system to the cloud. The cloud vendor provides the email service, including server hardware, operating system, and software. The company only needs to manage user accounts and mailboxes. Which cloud service model is the vendor providing?

Accepted Answer

Software as a Service (SaaS). The vendor provides the entire email service, including server hardware, operating system, and software, while the company only manages user accounts and mailboxes. This matches the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, where the provider delivers a complete application over the internet, and the customer has no control over the underlying infrastructure or platform.

Answer

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Answer

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Answer

Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

Question 3

A company wants to migrate its on-premises infrastructure to the cloud. The security team requires that the company retains full control over network configuration, firewall rules, and security policies, but they do not want to manage physical servers, storage, or the underlying hypervisor. 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 manage and control the network configuration, firewall rules, and security policies while the cloud provider handles the physical servers, storage, and hypervisor. This model gives the customer full control over the operating system, storage, and deployed applications, meeting the requirement of not managing the underlying physical infrastructure.

Answer

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Answer

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Answer

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

Question 4

A company hosts a critical application on two virtual machines located in different availability zones within the same cloud region. Both VMs are active and running simultaneously. The application is designed such that if one VM fails, the other continues serving traffic without any downtime. Which cloud concept does this configuration BEST demonstrate?

Accepted Answer

Fault tolerance. This configuration demonstrates fault tolerance because the application is designed to continue operating without interruption when one VM fails. By running two active VMs in different availability zones within the same region, the system eliminates a single point of failure and ensures zero downtime during a component failure, which is the defining characteristic of fault tolerance.

Answer

Elasticity

Answer

Load balancing

Answer

Auto-scaling

Question 5

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?

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.

Answer

High availability

Answer

Fault tolerance

Answer

Load balancing

Question 6

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.

Answer

High availability

Answer

Fault tolerance

Answer

Elasticity

Question 7

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.

Answer

A. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Answer

C. Software as a Service (SaaS)

Answer

D. Function as a Service (FaaS)

Question 8

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.

Answer

Scalability

Answer

High availability

Answer

Fault tolerance

Question 9

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.

Answer

Resource pooling

Answer

Rapid elasticity

Answer

On-demand self-service

Question 10

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.

Answer

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

Answer

A NAT network adapter for each VM

Answer

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

Question 11

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.

Answer

Auto-scaling

Answer

High availability

Answer

Elasticity

Question 12

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.

Answer

Disaster recovery

Answer

Fault tolerance

Answer

Elasticity

Question 13

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.

Answer

On-demand self-service

Answer

Resource pooling

Answer

Measured service

Question 14

A company uses a public cloud IaaS provider. A developer needs to create a new virtual machine for testing. The developer logs into the cloud management console, selects the desired OS and size, and launches the VM. The VM is ready within minutes. No interaction with the cloud provider's staff is required. Which cloud computing characteristic does this best represent?

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

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.

Answer

Object storage

Answer

File storage

Answer

Persistent block storage

Question 15

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.

Answer

Metered service

Answer

Resource pooling

Answer

On-demand self-service