220-1101 Virtualization and Cloud Computing Practice Question
A company wants to move its email system to the cloud. The IT team wants to avoid managing the underlying servers and email software but needs full administrative control over email settings, user accounts, and security policies. Which cloud service model should the company choose?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse administrative control over the application with control over the underlying infrastructure, leading them to choose IaaS because they think full control requires managing servers, but SaaS still provides full administrative control over the application's settings and policies.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Software as a Service (SaaS) delivers the email application over the internet, with the provider managing the underlying servers, operating systems, and email software. This model allows the company to avoid server and software management while retaining full administrative control over email settings, user accounts, and security policies through the application's management interface. Examples include Microsoft 365 Exchange Online and Google Workspace.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Why it's wrong here
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) supplies on-demand virtualized physical resources such as compute, storage, and networking. The customer is still responsible for deploying and maintaining operating systems, middleware, and the email application itself, so the IT team would face the same patching and uptime management duties as on-premises. That makes IaaS a poor fit when the goal is to offload the operational burden of running an email system.
- ✗
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Why it's wrong here
Platform as a Service (PaaS) is an application development and deployment environment providing managed runtimes, databases, and middleware for custom-built software. To use it for email, the IT team would have to design, code, and maintain the entire email platform, including the messaging protocol stack and storage schemas. This is far more engineering effort than purchasing a ready-made cloud email service and misses the point of moving to a managed cloud solution.
- ✓
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Why this is correct
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a complete, multi-tenant application delivered over the internet and licensed on a subscription or consumption basis, with the vendor managing all underlying infrastructure, operating system, and application code. For email, services such as Microsoft Exchange Online or Google Workspace provide fully functional mailboxes, calendaring, and security features while the customer retains administrative control over users, policies, and data. This directly satisfies the requirement to move email to the cloud without incurring infrastructure or software maintenance responsibilities.
- ✗
Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
Why it's wrong here
Desktop as a Service (DaaS) streams virtualized desktops that run on cloud infrastructure to end-user devices, giving users access to their personal workspace and applications. It is a desktop virtualization offering, not an email service, so it does not provide the backend messaging stores or SMTP/Exchange protocols needed for a corporate mail system. Selecting DaaS would still require a separate email platform to be deployed or accessed elsewhere.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 220-1101 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 220-1101 exam.