Objective 2.0

Fundamental cloud concepts

GCDL Practice Questions

Use this page to practise cloud concepts questions. AZ-900 questions on this domain are scenario-based — you must identify the correct deployment or service model for a business requirement, not just define the terms.

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What this objective tests

GCDL Fundamental cloud concepts — Key Topics

Cloud concepts questions test the IaaS/PaaS/SaaS model, shared responsibility, cloud economic benefits and the public/private/hybrid deployment models.

IaaS, PaaS and SaaS responsibilities and real-world examples.
Public, private, hybrid and community cloud deployment models.
CapEx vs OpEx trade-offs and the economic case for cloud.
The shared responsibility model between Microsoft and the customer.

Common exam traps

Where candidates lose marks on Fundamental cloud concepts

⚠IaaS gives you infrastructure control; SaaS gives you only the application.
⚠Hybrid cloud combines on-premises and public cloud — not two public clouds.
⚠The customer is always responsible for data and identity even in SaaS.
⚠CapEx is upfront spend; OpEx is ongoing spend — cloud shifts most costs to OpEx.

GCDL Fundamental cloud concepts — Practice Questions

30 questions from this objective

Question 2easymultiple choice

Study the full virtualization explanation →

A company wants to use computing resources over the internet without managing physical servers. The cloud provider manages the underlying hardware and virtualization, while the company manages the operating system, middleware, and applications. Which cloud service model does this describe?

Question 3easymultiple choice

Fundamental cloud concepts

GCDL Fundamental cloud concepts — Key Topics

Where candidates lose marks on Fundamental cloud concepts

GCDL Fundamental cloud concepts — Practice Questions

A company wants to use computing resources over the internet without managing physical servers. The cloud provider manages the underlying hardware and virtualization, while the company manages the operating system, middleware, and applications. Which cloud service model does this describe?

A team uses Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Sheets) for their daily work. They do not manage any servers or software installation — Google maintains everything. Which cloud service model does Google Workspace represent?

A hospital runs a patient records system that must remain on-premises due to strict regulatory data residency requirements. However, they also want to use cloud-based AI for diagnostic imaging analysis. Which cloud deployment model best describes their architecture?

According to the NIST definition of cloud computing, which characteristic allows users to unilaterally provision computing resources such as server time and network storage without requiring human interaction with the service provider?

An organization runs its entire infrastructure on a single public cloud provider (Google Cloud). All applications, data, and services live in Google Cloud's infrastructure. Which deployment model describes this?

What is virtualization in the context of cloud computing, and why is it fundamental to how cloud providers deliver services?

A company uses two different public cloud providers (AWS for their North American operations and Google Cloud for their European operations) to meet data residency requirements and avoid vendor lock-in. Which deployment model does this represent?

Which term describes the model where the cloud provider is responsible for the security of the cloud infrastructure, while the customer is responsible for security within their own cloud environment (data, applications, access management)?

A company is planning a cloud migration and wants to understand the difference between 'lift and shift' and 'cloud-native' approaches. Which statement correctly distinguishes these two migration strategies?

What is the key difference between a virtual machine (VM) and a container in terms of how they package and run applications?

What does 'serverless computing' mean, and what does a developer NOT have to manage when using serverless services?

A company's on-premises applications occasionally need more compute capacity than their own infrastructure can provide (during seasonal peaks). They want to use cloud resources to handle the overflow traffic while keeping base workloads on-premises. Which cloud architectural pattern describes this?

What does 'high availability' mean in the context of cloud services, and how is it typically measured?

What is the difference between RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective) in disaster recovery planning?

A company's monolithic application is difficult to update because any change requires testing and redeploying the entire application, causing multi-hour downtime during updates. The team is considering a microservices architecture. What is the primary benefit of microservices in this context?

What is horizontal scaling, and how does it differ from vertical scaling?

What is an API (Application Programming Interface), and why is it fundamental to cloud services and digital transformation?

A company is evaluating whether to use a public cloud (Google Cloud), a private cloud (on-premises VMware), or a managed private cloud (hosted single-tenant environment). Which scenario is the strongest argument for choosing a managed private cloud over a public cloud?

What is DevOps, and how does cloud adoption reinforce DevOps practices?

Google Cloud bills Compute Engine VMs per second (after a 1-minute minimum). A batch job runs for exactly 3 minutes and 47 seconds. How many minutes does Google Cloud charge for?

When choosing a Google Cloud region for a new application, which factors should primarily drive the decision?

A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) in Google Cloud provides network isolation. What does 'network isolation' mean in this context, and why is it important?

What does 'durability' mean for cloud storage services, and how is it different from 'availability'?

A company hosts a web application that receives requests from users globally. To handle failures, they run three identical copies of their application behind a load balancer. When one copy fails, the load balancer automatically stops sending traffic to it. What load balancing feature enables this?

A company's application uses a relational database for transactional data (orders, payments) and a separate NoSQL database for user session data and product catalog. Why might an architect choose two different database types for the same application?

A web application's homepage loads user-specific data (shopping cart, recent orders) on every visit. The data changes frequently. An engineer suggests caching this data in a Redis cache between the web tier and the database. What is the primary benefit of this caching layer?

What is 'infrastructure as code' (IaC), and what problem does it solve compared to manually configuring cloud resources through a web console?

A company's application is called 'stateless' because it doesn't store any user session data in the application server's memory. Each request contains all necessary information. Why is statelessness important for cloud scalability?

A company's cloud architect explains that their new system uses 'eventual consistency' for some data operations. A business stakeholder asks why the system won't always show the most up-to-date data immediately. What is the trade-off being made?

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Fundamental cloud concepts

GCDL Fundamental cloud concepts — Key Topics

Where candidates lose marks on Fundamental cloud concepts

GCDL Fundamental cloud concepts — Practice Questions

A company wants to use computing resources over the internet without managing physical servers. The cloud provider manages the underlying hardware and virtualization, while the company manages the operating system, middleware, and applications. Which cloud service model does this describe?

A team uses Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Sheets) for their daily work. They do not manage any servers or software installation — Google maintains everything. Which cloud service model does Google Workspace represent?

A hospital runs a patient records system that must remain on-premises due to strict regulatory data residency requirements. However, they also want to use cloud-based AI for diagnostic imaging analysis. Which cloud deployment model best describes their architecture?

According to the NIST definition of cloud computing, which characteristic allows users to unilaterally provision computing resources such as server time and network storage without requiring human interaction with the service provider?

An organization runs its entire infrastructure on a single public cloud provider (Google Cloud). All applications, data, and services live in Google Cloud's infrastructure. Which deployment model describes this?

What is virtualization in the context of cloud computing, and why is it fundamental to how cloud providers deliver services?

A company uses two different public cloud providers (AWS for their North American operations and Google Cloud for their European operations) to meet data residency requirements and avoid vendor lock-in. Which deployment model does this represent?

Which term describes the model where the cloud provider is responsible for the security of the cloud infrastructure, while the customer is responsible for security within their own cloud environment (data, applications, access management)?

A company is planning a cloud migration and wants to understand the difference between 'lift and shift' and 'cloud-native' approaches. Which statement correctly distinguishes these two migration strategies?

What is the key difference between a virtual machine (VM) and a container in terms of how they package and run applications?

What does 'serverless computing' mean, and what does a developer NOT have to manage when using serverless services?

A company's on-premises applications occasionally need more compute capacity than their own infrastructure can provide (during seasonal peaks). They want to use cloud resources to handle the overflow traffic while keeping base workloads on-premises. Which cloud architectural pattern describes this?

What does 'high availability' mean in the context of cloud services, and how is it typically measured?

What is the difference between RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective) in disaster recovery planning?

A company's monolithic application is difficult to update because any change requires testing and redeploying the entire application, causing multi-hour downtime during updates. The team is considering a microservices architecture. What is the primary benefit of microservices in this context?

What is horizontal scaling, and how does it differ from vertical scaling?

What is an API (Application Programming Interface), and why is it fundamental to cloud services and digital transformation?

A company is evaluating whether to use a public cloud (Google Cloud), a private cloud (on-premises VMware), or a managed private cloud (hosted single-tenant environment). Which scenario is the strongest argument for choosing a managed private cloud over a public cloud?

What is DevOps, and how does cloud adoption reinforce DevOps practices?

Google Cloud bills Compute Engine VMs per second (after a 1-minute minimum). A batch job runs for exactly 3 minutes and 47 seconds. How many minutes does Google Cloud charge for?

When choosing a Google Cloud region for a new application, which factors should primarily drive the decision?

A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) in Google Cloud provides network isolation. What does 'network isolation' mean in this context, and why is it important?

What does 'durability' mean for cloud storage services, and how is it different from 'availability'?

A company hosts a web application that receives requests from users globally. To handle failures, they run three identical copies of their application behind a load balancer. When one copy fails, the load balancer automatically stops sending traffic to it. What load balancing feature enables this?

A company's application uses a relational database for transactional data (orders, payments) and a separate NoSQL database for user session data and product catalog. Why might an architect choose two different database types for the same application?

A web application's homepage loads user-specific data (shopping cart, recent orders) on every visit. The data changes frequently. An engineer suggests caching this data in a Redis cache between the web tier and the database. What is the primary benefit of this caching layer?

What is 'infrastructure as code' (IaC), and what problem does it solve compared to manually configuring cloud resources through a web console?

A company's application is called 'stateless' because it doesn't store any user session data in the application server's memory. Each request contains all necessary information. Why is statelessness important for cloud scalability?

A company's cloud architect explains that their new system uses 'eventual consistency' for some data operations. A business stakeholder asks why the system won't always show the most up-to-date data immediately. What is the trade-off being made?

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