AZ900 - Cloud Concepts

Elasticity

"The ability to automatically or dynamically increase or decrease resources as needed. Elastic resources match the current needs, and resources are added or removed automatically to meet future needs when it's needed, and from the most advantageous geographic location. A distinction between scalability and elasticity is that elasticity is done automatically"

Scalability

"The ability to increase or decrease resources for any given workload. You can add additional resources to service a workload (known as scaling out), or add additional capabilities to manage an increase in demand to the existing resource (known as scaling up). Scalability doesn't have to be done automatically"

Agility

"The ability to react quickly. Cloud services can allocate and deallocate resources quickly. They are provided on-demand via self-service, so vast amounts of computing resources can be provisioned in minutes. There is no manual intervention in provisioning or deprovisioning services."

Which of the following refers to spending money upfront and then deducting that expense over time? A. Capital expenditure B. Operational expenditures C. Supply and demand

A. Capital expenditure refers to spending of money on physical infrastructure up front, and then deducting that expense from your tax bill over time.

Which of the following describes a benefit of cloud services? A. Economies of scale B. Fixed workloads C. Unpredictable costs

A. Economies of scale is the ability to do things more cheaply and more efficiently when operating at a larger scale in comparison to operating at a smaller scale.

Which of the following requires the most user management of the cloud services? A. Infrastructure as a Service B. Platform as a Service C. Software as a Service

A. Infrastructure as a Service requires the most user management of cloud services.

PaaS User Responsibilities

Applications and Local Data Copies

Which of the following describes Platform as a Service (PaaS)? A. Users are responsible for purchasing, installing, configuring, and managing their own software—operating systems, middleware, and applications. B. Users create and deploy applications quickly without having to worry about managing the underlying infrastructure. C. Users pay an annual or monthly subscription.

B. PaaS lets users create and deploy applications quickly without having to worry about managing the underlying infrastructure.

Which cloud model provides the greatest degree of ownership and control? A. Hybrid B. Private C. Public

B. The private cloud provides the greatest degree of ownership and control.

You have legacy applications that require specialized mainframe hardware and you have newer shared applications. Which cloud deployment model would be best for you? A. Public cloud B. Private cloud C. Hybrid cloud

C. A hybrid cloud is a public and private cloud combined. You can run your newer applications on commodity hardware you rent from the public cloud and maintain your specialized mainframe hardware on-premises.

Which of the following refers to making a service available with no downtime for an extended period of time? A. Agility B. Fault tolerance C. High availability D. Performance

C. High availability keeps services up and running for long periods of time, with very little downtime, depending on the service in question.

Microsoft Office 365 is an example of? A. Infrastructure as a Service B. Platform as a Service C. Software as a Service

C. SaaS is typically licensed through a monthly or annual subscription.

Which cloud model provides the greatest degree of flexibility? A. Public B. Private C. Hybrid

C. The hybrid cloud model provides the greatest degree of flexibility, as you have the option to choose either public or private depending on your requirements.

Which of the following describes a public cloud? A. Is owned and operated by the organization that uses the resources from that cloud. B. Let's organizations run applications in the cloud or on-premises. C. Provides resources and services to multiple organizations and users, who connect through a secure network connection.

C. The public cloud provides resources and services to multiple organizations and users, who connect through a secure network connection.

Security

Cloud providers offer a broad set of policies, technologies, controls, and expert technology skills that can provide better security than most organizations can otherwise achieve. The result is strengthened security, which helps to protect data, apps, and infrastructure from potential threats.

Technical Skill Requirements and Considerations

Cloud services can provide and manage hardware and software for workloads. Therefore, getting a workload up and running with cloud services demands less technical resources than having IT teams build and maintain physical infrastructure for handling the same workload. A user can be expert in the application they want to run without having to need skills to build and maintain the underlying hardware and software infrastructure.

Private Cloud - Advantages

Control, Security, Compliance, Legacy Applications

PaaS Common Usage Scenarios

Development framework, allowing faster development Analytics or BI, built in tools allow for easier data mining and forecasting

Hybrid Cloud - Advantages

Flexibility, Costs, Control, Security, Compliance

Customer Latency Capabilities

If customers are experiencing slowness with a particular cloud service, they are said to be experiencing some latency. Even though modern fiber optics are fast, it can still take time for services to react to customer actions if the service is not local to the customer. Cloud services have the ability deploy resources in datacenters around the globe, thus addressing customer latency issues.

IaaS (Stands for?)

Infrastructure as a Service

SaaS User Responsibilities

Local Data Copies

IaaS Common usage Scenarios

Migrating workloads, test and development environments, Website Hosting, Storage, Backup and Recovery

Public Cloud - Advantages

No CapEx, Agility, Consumption-based Model, No Hardware Maintenance, No Deep Technical Skills Required

PaaS Characteristics

No upfront costs, User is responsible for development of their applications and not responsible for managing the server or infrastructure, Cloud provider is responsible for everything else (OS management, network, service configuration)

SaaS Characteristics

No upfront costs, no maintenance or management of software, Users just use the software

consumption-based model benefits

No upfront costs. No need to purchase and manage costly infrastructure that they may or may not use to its fullest. The ability to pay for additional resources when they are needed. The ability to stop paying for resources that are no longer needed.

SaaS Common Usage Scenarios

Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Increased Productivity

On-site datacenters typically require a lot of hardware setup (otherwise known as racking and stacking), software patching, and other time-consuming IT management chores. Cloud computing eliminates the need for many of these tasks, so IT teams can spend time on achieving more important business goals.

Public Cloud

Owned by the cloud services provider (also known as a hosting provider). It provides resources and services to multiple organizations and users, who connect to the cloud service via a secure network connection, typically over the internet.

PaaS (Stands for?)

Platform as a Service

Public Cloud - Disadvantages

Security, Compliance, Ownership, Might not meet unique business requirements

SaaS (Stands for?)

Software as a Service

Predictive Cost Considerations

The ability for users to predict what costs they will incur for a particular cloud service. Costs for individual services are made available, and tools are provided to allow you predict what costs a service will incur. You can also perform analysis based on future growth.

Global Reach

The ability reach audiences around the globe. Cloud services can have presence in various regions across the globe which you can access, giving you a presence in those regions even though you may not have any infrastructure in that region.

high availability

The ability to keep services up and running for long periods of time, with very little downtime, depending on the service in question.

Disaster Recovery

The ability to recover from an event which has taken down a cloud service. Cloud services disaster recovery can happen very quickly with automation and services being readily available to use.

Explain the concept of Economies of Scale

The ability to reduce costs and gain efficiency when operating at a larger scale in comparison to operating at a smaller scale

Fault Tolerance

The ability to remain up and running even in the event of a component or service no longer functioning. Typically, redundancy is built into cloud services architecture so if one component fails, a backup component takes its place. The type of service is said to be tolerant of faults.

Operational Expenditure (OpEx)

This is spending money on services or products now and being billed for them now. You can deduct this expense from your tax bill in the same year. There is no up front cost, you pay for a service or product as you use it.

Capital Expenditure (CapEx)

This is the spending of money on physical infrastructure up front, and then deducting that expense from your tax bill over time. CapEx is an up front cost which has a value that reduces over time.

Private Cloud - Disadvantages

Upfront CapEx, Agility, Maintenance required, Technical Skills Required

Hybrid Cloud - Disadvantages

Upfront CapEx, Costs, Skills, Ease of Management

Hybrid Cloud

combines both public and private clouds, allowing you to run your applications in the most appropriate location.

consumption-based model

end users only pay for the resources that they use. Whatever they use is what they pay for.

Shared Responsibility Model

ensures cloud workloads are run securely and in a well-managed way

IaaS User Responsibilities

managing the operating systems, data, and applications

IaaS Characteristics

no upfront costs. Users pay only for what they consume. The user is responsible for the purchase, installation, configuration, and management of their own software operating systems, middleware, and applications. The cloud provider is responsible for ensuring that the underlying cloud infrastructure (such as virtual machines, storage and networking) is available for the user.

Private Cloud

owned and operated by the organization that uses the resources from that cloud.