MS-900 Describe cloud concepts Practice Test 4 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company wants to reduce hardware maintenance costs by moving to the cloud. They need to maintain full control over the operating system, applications, and security configurations, but do not want to manage physical servers or data center facilities. Which cloud service model should they choose?

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

Accepted Answer

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides virtualized computing resources over the internet, allowing the company to deploy and manage their own operating systems, applications, and security configurations while offloading the physical hardware and data center management to the cloud provider. This model gives the highest level of control over the software stack without the burden of maintaining physical servers, aligning perfectly with the requirement to reduce hardware maintenance costs while retaining full administrative access.

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Software as a Service (SaaS)

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Platform as a Service (PaaS)

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On-premises

Question 2

A healthcare organization must keep sensitive patient data on-premises due to regulatory compliance, but wants to use cloud services for other applications like customer relationship management and collaboration. Which cloud deployment model best meets this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Hybrid cloud. The hybrid cloud model is correct because it allows the healthcare organization to keep sensitive patient data on-premises (private cloud) for regulatory compliance (e.g., HIPAA), while leveraging public cloud services for customer relationship management and collaboration tools like Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365. This deployment model provides a unified environment where workloads can be distributed across on-premises and cloud infrastructure, ensuring data sovereignty and compliance without sacrificing scalability or cost efficiency.

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Public cloud

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Private cloud

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Community cloud

Question 3

Which cloud deployment model exclusively uses resources that are owned and managed by a single organization, and is often chosen for its high level of control and compliance?

Accepted Answer

Private cloud. The private cloud deployment model is correct because it is defined as a cloud infrastructure that is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization. This model provides the highest level of control over data, security, and compliance, as the organization owns and manages the underlying hardware and software, often within its own data center or via a dedicated hosted environment.

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Public cloud

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Hybrid cloud

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Community cloud

Question 4

A company wants to use a cloud service that provides ready-to-use business applications such as email, collaboration, and customer relationship management without managing the underlying infrastructure. Which cloud service model is this?

Accepted Answer

Software as a Service (SaaS). (SaaS) is correct because Software as a Service delivers ready-to-use business applications like Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online for email, Teams for collaboration, Dynamics 365 for CRM) over the internet, with the provider managing all underlying infrastructure, including servers, storage, and networking. The customer simply accesses the software via a web browser or client app without any responsibility for patching, scaling, or hardware maintenance.

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Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

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Platform as a Service (PaaS)

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Private cloud

Question 5

A financial services company uses a public cloud provider for its development and testing environments, but keeps its production data and applications on-premises due to strict regulatory requirements. Which cloud deployment model is the company using?

Accepted Answer

Hybrid cloud. The company uses a hybrid cloud model because it combines on-premises infrastructure (private cloud) for production workloads with a public cloud provider for development and testing. This allows the organization to meet strict regulatory requirements for data residency and security while leveraging the scalability and cost benefits of the public cloud for non-sensitive workloads.

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Public cloud

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Private cloud

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Community cloud

Question 6

A development team wants to build a custom web application. They choose a cloud service that provides the runtime environment, operating system, and middleware, but the team is responsible for writing and deploying their own code. The provider automatically applies patches to the underlying infrastructure. Which cloud service model best describes this approach?

Accepted Answer

Platform as a Service (PaaS). Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides the runtime environment, operating system, and middleware, allowing developers to focus on writing and deploying their own code while the cloud provider manages the underlying infrastructure, including automatic patching. This model abstracts the hardware and OS layer, giving the team full control over application code but not the platform stack.

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Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

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Software as a Service (SaaS)

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Function as a Service (FaaS)

Question 7

A financial services firm uses a public cloud provider for its customer-facing web application, but stores sensitive client data on its own on-premises servers. A secure VPN connection is used to transfer anonymized data from the public cloud to the on-premises environment for processing. Which cloud deployment model does this describe?

Accepted Answer

Hybrid cloud. This scenario describes a hybrid cloud because it combines a public cloud provider for the customer-facing web application with an on-premises private cloud for sensitive client data, connected via a secure VPN. The hybrid cloud model enables organizations to leverage the scalability and cost-efficiency of public cloud resources while maintaining strict control over sensitive data in a private environment. The use of a VPN to transfer anonymized data between the two environments is a key characteristic of hybrid cloud architecture, as it ensures secure communication across the boundary.

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Public cloud

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Private cloud

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Community cloud

Question 8

A company runs a custom application on a cloud provider's infrastructure. The provider manages the physical servers, networking, and storage, but the company installs, configures, and patches the operating system and application. Which cloud service model is this?

Accepted Answer

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). This scenario describes Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) because the cloud provider manages the underlying physical infrastructure (servers, networking, storage), while the customer retains control over the operating system, middleware, and application. In IaaS, the customer is responsible for OS patching, configuration, and application management, which matches the given responsibilities.

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Software as a Service (SaaS)

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Platform as a Service (PaaS)

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Function as a Service (FaaS)

Question 9

A company wants to use a cloud service where they only manage their data and user access, while the cloud provider handles everything from the physical infrastructure to the applications. Which cloud service model is this?

Accepted Answer

Software as a Service (SaaS). This scenario describes Software as a Service (SaaS), where the cloud provider manages the entire stack—physical infrastructure, operating system, middleware, runtime, data, and applications—while the customer only manages their data and user access. In SaaS, the provider delivers fully functional applications over the internet, such as Microsoft 365, where users simply log in and use the software without any infrastructure or platform management responsibilities.

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Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

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Platform as a Service (PaaS)

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On-premises deployment

Question 10

A cloud provider offers a service where customers can provision virtual machines, storage, and networks on-demand through a web portal. The customer is responsible for patching the guest operating system. Which cloud service model best describes this offering?

Accepted Answer

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). (Infrastructure as a Service) because the customer provisions fundamental compute, storage, and networking resources on-demand, and retains control over the guest OS, including patching. In IaaS, the provider manages only the physical infrastructure (hypervisor, networking, storage hardware), while the customer is responsible for the OS and applications, matching the scenario exactly.

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Software as a Service (SaaS)

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Platform as a Service (PaaS)

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Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

Question 11

A development team wants to deploy a custom web application. They choose a cloud service that provides the operating system, web server, and database management system. The team is responsible only for uploading and managing their application code. Which cloud service model does this represent?

Accepted Answer

Platform as a Service (PaaS). This scenario describes Platform as a Service (PaaS) because the cloud provider manages the underlying infrastructure—operating system, web server, and database management system—while the development team is responsible only for deploying and managing their custom application code. PaaS abstracts the platform layer, allowing developers to focus on code without worrying about OS patches, web server configuration, or database administration.

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Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

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Software as a Service (SaaS)

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Function as a Service (FaaS)

Question 12

A marketing manager can access the company's cloud resources from her laptop at home, her tablet while traveling, and her smartphone. Which essential characteristic of cloud computing does this describe?

Accepted Answer

Broad network access. Broad network access means cloud resources can be accessed over standard network protocols (e.g., HTTPS, TLS) from a wide range of client devices, such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones. The scenario explicitly describes access from multiple device types and locations, which is the defining characteristic of broad network access as per NIST SP 800-145.

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Resource pooling

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Scalability

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Measured service

Question 13

A company runs its customer relationship management (CRM) system using a cloud provider's SaaS offering. They also use virtual machines (IaaS) from the same provider to host a legacy application. In this scenario, who is responsible for patching the operating system of the virtual machines?

Accepted Answer

The customer is responsible for patching the operating system of the virtual machines.. In an IaaS model, the cloud provider is responsible for the security of the physical infrastructure, hypervisor, and network, but the customer retains responsibility for the guest operating system and applications. Since the virtual machines are IaaS resources, the customer must manage OS patches, updates, and configuration. This follows the shared responsibility model, where the customer is accountable for anything they configure or deploy within the virtual machine.

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The cloud provider is fully responsible for patching all components.

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The cloud provider patches the OS for all services equally.

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No patching is needed because the cloud handles everything.

Question 14

A company uses Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) from a cloud provider. They have deployed virtual machines running a custom application. The cloud provider supplies the physical hardware, networking, and storage. Who is responsible for patching the operating system of the virtual machines?

Accepted Answer

The customer. In an IaaS model, the cloud provider is responsible for the physical infrastructure (hardware, networking, storage), but the customer retains responsibility for the guest OS and application stack. Patching the operating system of virtual machines is a customer task because the customer controls the OS image and has full administrative access to the VM. This follows the shared responsibility model where the provider secures the hypervisor and physical layer, while the customer secures the OS and applications.

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The cloud provider

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Both the provider and the customer share equally

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A third-party managed security service provider

Question 15

An administrator is reviewing a request from users who need to avoid buying servers upfront and pay monthly based on usage. Cloud concept or benefit best matches this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Operational expenditure (OpEx) model. The requirement to avoid upfront server purchases and pay monthly based on usage directly aligns with the operational expenditure (OpEx) model, a key cloud computing benefit. In cloud services, OpEx shifts costs from capital expenditure (CapEx) to a pay-as-you-go or subscription-based model, eliminating the need for large upfront hardware investments. This is a fundamental concept in Microsoft Azure and other cloud platforms, where resources like virtual machines are billed monthly based on actual consumption.

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Sensitivity labels

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Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

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Microsoft Planner