CLO-002 Cloud Concepts Practice Test 2 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is moving from a capital expenditure model to an operational expenditure model. What is the primary benefit?

Accepted Answer

Removal of upfront capital costs. The primary benefit of moving from CapEx to OpEx is the elimination of large upfront capital investments. In a CapEx model, a company must purchase hardware and infrastructure outright, which requires significant capital outlay and depreciates over time. In an OpEx model, such as with cloud services, the company pays for what it uses on a subscription or pay-as-you-go basis, converting that large upfront cost into smaller, recurring operational expenses. This improves cash flow and allows the company to scale resources up or down as needed without being locked into a long-term asset.

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Increased control over hardware

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Predictable monthly billing

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No hardware maintenance

Question 2

A company is migrating an on-premises database to a public cloud. The database requires low latency and high IOPS. Which storage type should the architect select?

Accepted Answer

Provisioned IOPS SSD. A Provisioned IOPS SSD (e.g., AWS io1/io2, Azure Premium SSD v2) is designed for latency-sensitive, high-throughput database workloads because it lets you specify both IOPS and throughput independently of capacity. This directly satisfies the low-latency and high-IOPS requirements of a migrated on-premises database. The other options are optimized for cost, capacity, or archival rather than sustained high-performance random I/O.

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Cold Storage

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Magnetic HDD

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Object Storage

Question 3

Which cloud characteristic allows an organization to rapidly increase resources during a spike in traffic and decrease them when traffic drops?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. Elasticity is the cloud characteristic that enables automatic, rapid scaling of resources up during demand spikes and down when demand subsides, ideally in near-real time. It is what allows an e-commerce site to absorb a flash sale and then release capacity afterward, paying only for what was used.

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Resource pooling

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Broad network access

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Measured service

Question 4

An application requires a database that can handle unstructured data and scale horizontally. Which database type is best?

Accepted Answer

NoSQL Database. NoSQL databases are designed to handle unstructured or semi-structured data (e.g., JSON, key-value, graph) and are built for horizontal scaling across distributed clusters. They sacrifice strict ACID transactions and fixed schemas for flexibility and partition tolerance, making them ideal for large-scale, rapidly evolving applications. In contrast, relational databases require predefined schemas and typically scale vertically, while data warehouses are optimized for analytical queries on structured data, and in-memory databases prioritize speed but not necessarily horizontal scalability for unstructured data.

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Data Warehouse

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In-memory Database

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Relational Database

Question 5

Which of the following represents a major benefit of cloud computing where resources are shared among multiple customers?

Accepted Answer

Resource pooling. Resource pooling is the multi-tenant cloud characteristic where compute, storage, and network resources are shared among many customers from a pooled infrastructure, with dynamic assignment based on demand. This sharing drives economies of scale and cost efficiency, which is the benefit described in the question.

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Local area networking

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Static provisioning

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Dedicated hosting

Question 6

An architect is designing a system that must survive a complete data center failure. What should be utilized?

Accepted Answer

Multi-AZ deployment. A Multi-AZ deployment distributes resources across multiple Availability Zones within a region, providing high availability and fault tolerance. If one data center (AZ) fails, the application can continue running in another AZ, thus surviving a complete data center failure. Therefore, Multi-AZ is the correct choice.

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Local SSD storage

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Auto Scaling

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Single AZ deployment

Question 7

Which cloud service model would a company use if they want to manage their application code and data but leave the OS, runtime, and hardware management to the provider?

Accepted Answer

PaaS. PaaS (Platform as a Service) provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure. The provider manages the OS, runtime, and hardware, while the customer manages the application code and data.

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IaaS

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SaaS

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Serverless

Question 8

A company needs to store backups for compliance purposes for seven years. Access is rarely required. What is the most cost-effective storage class?

Accepted Answer

Archive/Glacier Storage. Archive/Glacier storage is designed for long-term retention of data that is rarely accessed, offering the lowest per-gigabyte storage price in exchange for higher retrieval latency and retrieval costs. For seven-year compliance backups where access is rare, the storage cost dominates the total cost of ownership, so archive tier is the most cost-effective choice.

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Reduced Redundancy Storage

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Intelligent-Tiering

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Standard Storage

Question 9

When using an Auto Scaling group, what metric is most commonly used to trigger an increase in server instances?

Accepted Answer

CPU utilization. Auto Scaling groups most commonly use CPU utilization (Option A) as the trigger metric because it directly reflects compute load and is available natively from hypervisors and CloudWatch. When average CPU exceeds a target threshold (e.g., 70%), the scaling policy adds instances. It is simple, reliable, and correlates well with demand for many workloads.

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Total cost

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Network latency

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Number of concurrent users

Question 10

Which cloud principle refers to the ability to pay for only the compute power you consume?

Accepted Answer

Measured service. Measured service is the cloud principle that provides metering of resource usage, enabling pay-per-use billing. In this model, the cloud provider automatically monitors, controls, and reports resource consumption (e.g., compute hours, storage GB, data transfer), and customers are billed only for what they consume. This is distinct from on-demand self-service, which allows provisioning without human interaction, but does not inherently include metering. Thus, measured service directly supports the ability to pay only for the compute power used.

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Rapid elasticity

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Resource pooling

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On-demand self-service

Question 11

A company uses a hybrid cloud. They need to move a database workload to the cloud that has strict regulatory requirements. Which deployment model is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Private cloud deployment. Private cloud deployment is correct because strict regulatory requirements (e.g., PCI-DSS, HIPAA, GDPR data residency, FedRAMP) often mandate dedicated infrastructure, full control over data location, and isolation from other tenants. A private cloud provides single-tenant hardware and network, enabling the organization to meet compliance controls around data sovereignty, access, and auditing that multi-tenant public clouds may not satisfy without extensive additional controls.

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Public cloud multi-tenant

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Community cloud

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Serverless functions

Question 12

What is the benefit of moving from an on-premises data center to a cloud provider?

Accepted Answer

Reduced physical infrastructure management. Moving to a cloud provider shifts the burden of procuring, racking, powering, cooling, and maintaining physical servers to the provider, so the customer's operational scope shrinks to what they run in the cloud. This reduction in physical infrastructure management is the core benefit. It also enables elasticity and pay-as-you-go economics, but the question asks about the primary benefit of the move itself.

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No need for networking

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Guaranteed 100% uptime

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Elimination of software updates

Question 13

Which cloud networking component allows an instance in a public subnet to communicate with the internet?

Accepted Answer

Internet Gateway. An Internet Gateway (D) is the VPC component that enables communication between instances in a public subnet and the internet. It provides a target for route table entries directing internet-bound traffic and performs NAT for instances with public IPs.

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NAT Gateway

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Peering Connection

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VPC Endpoint

Question 14

Which cloud service model provides a platform for developers to deploy applications without managing the underlying infrastructure?

Accepted Answer

PaaS. PaaS (Platform as a Service) provides a complete development and deployment environment with managed infrastructure, allowing developers to deploy applications without managing servers, OS, or runtime. The provider handles the underlying infrastructure, and the consumer focuses on code and configuration. This matches the question's requirement exactly.

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SaaS

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IaaS

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DaaS

Question 15

An administrator needs to securely manage access to cloud resources. Which service should be used to create groups, users, and roles?

Accepted Answer

Identity and Access Management. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is the service used to create and manage users, groups, roles, and policies that control access to AWS resources. It provides authentication and authorization for cloud resources. This directly matches the requirement to securely manage access.

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Key Management Service

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Security Groups

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Active Directory