WGU D318 Cloud + latest updated exam questions with 100% accurate solutions

Canary development model

The deployment model that gradually moves users from an old deployment to a new one, rather than an immediate switchover of all users.

Blue-Green Release Model

the model of separate development, staging, and production environments. At any given time, only one of these is hosting the production environment. The idle environment serves as the staging area for the next release of the software or service. Hot standby environment alwasy available.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

The cloud hosting of a bare server computer or data storage.

IaaS examples:

AWS EC2

Microsoft Azure

Rackspace

Digital Ocean

Target audience:

IT administrators

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

A service model in which various platforms are provided virtually, enabling developers to build and test applications within virtual, online environments tailored to the specific needs of a project. This solution is often aimed at developers and database administrators (DBAs)

Examples:

Google App Engine

Heroku

AWS ElasticBeanstalk

Salesforce

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Permits consumers to use the software provided by the CSP. The CSP retains responsibility for installing, configuring, maintaining, patching, and upgrading the software.

Examples:

Microsoft Office 365

Google Apps

WebEx

Dropbox

Netflix

Recognized Cloud Services

Google workspace(G Suite) - Similar to Office 365

Office 365 - Saas

Digital Oceans -developer oriented

Rackspace Technologies

Red Hat Cloud Suite

What is another name for Serverless Computing?

Function as a Service (FAAS)

Serverless Computing architecture

It runs functions within virtualized runtime containers in a cloud.

Serverless Computing billing

They are billed only for what is used.

example of an AWS serverless service

AWS Lambda

example of a Azure serverless service

Azure Functions

example of a Google Cloud serverless service

Google Cloud App Engine

Shared Security Model

CSP: Software and Hardware

Customers: Configuration of managed services or third-party software, configuration of virtual infrastructure and systems, security configuration data

Hyperconverged virtualization

Tightly-knit combination of CPU, memory, storage, and network subsystems that cannot be managed separately.

first step in troubleshooting methodology

Identify the Problem

second step in troubleshooting methodology

Establish a theory of probable cause.

third step in troubleshooting methodology

Test the Theory to determine cause.

fourth step in troubleshooting methodology

Establish a plan of action to resolve the problem and implement the solution.

fifth step in troubleshooting methodology

Verify full system functionality and, if applicable, implement preventive measures.

sixth step in troubleshooting methodology

Document findings, actions, and outcomes.

Deployment Environment

where programmers code projects, detect bugs, manage code versions, and implement code-level security.

Staging Environment

An environment (aka: quality assurance environment) is where QA testers validate cloud applications and services. This validation may include security and performance testing. The tests may be automated or manual (or both).

Production Environment

Is available to end-users. Security is in place to protect data and availability.

Performance Testing

quality assurance test to determine a system or application's functionality under a given workload.

Regression Testing

The process of testing changes to computer programs to make sure that the older programming still works with the new changes

Functional Testing

Testing in normal conditions and this tests to ensure that the software is in line with all of the specifications outlined by the client.

Usability Testing

Testing to evaluate the degree to which the system can be used by specified users with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.

Scale-up

the process of increasing the size or volume of the production of a particular product, such as addin more Memory for a VM.

Scale-out

The ability to increase the capacity of an information system by adding additional hardware components, such as more servers. ( more VMs deployed)

Solution requirements

Defines the criteria for a solution to a given problem that software or services are expected to meet. The requirements define what needs to happen without specifying how the solution will be met. Such as hardware must be redundant and provide a particular level of performance.

Business Needs Analysis

The document contains solutions that must be found in order for the organization to achieve its strategic goals.

Requirement Documents template contents

Project overview

Project scope

Success factors

Stakeholder identification

Project constraints

System functionality

User classes

User interface requirements

Per User Licensing

One license for each user that consumes the software or service

Socket based licensing

One license for each CPU that attaches to the socket of a motherboard, regardless of the number of cores the CPU might contain

Core Based Licensing

One license for each core in a CPU in a server

Volume-based licensing

One license that permits a specified number of installations, for example, installation of the software on up to 100 computers

Perpetual Licensing

One-time fee for a license that may include additional support costs; however, the license is good for the life of the software

subscription

Periodic cost; usually includes at least basic technical support, maintenance, and possibly upgrades

system load

A measure of how busy the system's central processing unit (CPU) is over a period of time.

Over three points in time: one minute, five minutes, and 15 minutes.

Measured by CPU queue length.

Queue length should not exceed number of logical processors (cores) in the system.

Used for Estimating capacity planning and ensuring that processes are being handled efficiently.

Patterns vs Anomalies

Performance monitoring and capacity planning patterns determine patterns in load during specific times. An anomaly is a change in performance or other behavior that is not explained by the current workload. Such as a website performance degradation during low load.

trend analysis

attempts to predict future results based on recently observed results.

helps cloud administrators anticipate future issues or capacity requirements based on observed utilization of applications or systems.

The results are used for capacity planning and system scaling.

helps IT staff understand what to move to the cloud and when.

Storage as a Service (StaaS)

Storing or renting space from a CSP

Some examples include:

Dropbox

Microsoft OneDrive

Azure Files

AWS Elastic File Storage

AWS Backup

iCloud

Google Drive

Private Branch Exchange (PBX)

a telephone switching exchange that serves a single organization.

Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, RingCentral

Cloud Communication Services

Often include:

Email

Online meeting/video calls

Desktop and mobile VoIP

Voicemail

Recording (for regulatory compliance)

SMS and other messaging

Encryption

collaboration system

Tools that support the work of teams or groups by facilitating the sharing and flow of information.

AWS WorkDocs and Smart Business

document exchanges, editing, contact management, and online meetings.

Cloning

The process of quickly duplicating a virtual machine's configuration when several identical machines are needed immediately.

Purpose of cloning

Rapid deployment of machines already in service with data and configurations.

Solution Templates

A complete template that includes multiple virtual servers, various services, and network configurations managed by the consumer.

Managed Templates

A complete VM, storage, and network configuration managed by IT.

container

An operating system virtualization deployment containing everything required to run a service, application, or microservice.

Examples of container technologies

Docker, Hyper-V and Windows Containers, Kubernetes, Podman.

containers

Built from Configuration files called images.

Good practice is to create basic image file's and then customize those image files by using environment variables

Container Secrets

are confidential values passed to a container, such as SSH keys, certificates, and passwords.

stored more securely than environment variables.

Security for container secrets

secrets should be encrypted, as most container management solutions do not encrypt them by default.Secrets should not be viewable or transmitted over the network unless encrypted.

Docker container

Docker containers do not persistently store data by default.

The data disappears when the container is stopped.

can be configured to store data on the host system.

Docker volumes

stored on the host in a directory that is only modified by Docker, good for sharing data among containers.

Bind mount

a file or folder stored anywhere on the container host filesystem, mounted into a running container

They can be used to pass host configurations to the containers, such as the /etc/resolv.conf file.

tmpfs

a "temporary" file system that is created in volatile main memory and has its contents erased if the system reboots or crashes

good choice for data that you don't want to persist.

Post Deployment Validation

applies to both development and infrastructure projects. A QA team is usually responsible for such testing.

Examples of Post Development testing

Test examples:

Display resources to ensure they exist (connect to servers, databases, and web sites).

Check performance metrics to ensure they match configurations (quantity of RAM and network settings) (performance testing).

Confirm security configurations (vulnerability and penetration testing).

Test new features for functionality (functional and usability testing).

Test old features for functionality (regression testing).

Report, prioritize, and address bugs or configuration problems.

Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT)

Processing of multiple threads simultaneously.

Hyperthreading (HT)

A technology created by Intel that is an alternative to using two processors. HT allows a single processor to handle two separate sets of instructions simultaneously.

Fsv2-series

Includes Intel Hyper-Threading and is best for computationally intensive workloads

Azures VM Template configurations

H-Series

Does not include Intel Hyper-Threading and is best for high memory utilization workloads

Azures VM Template configurations

c4.large instance

Has a single CPU and supports either one or two threads (two by default).

AWS recommends single-threaded processing for large-scale high performance computing (HPC) scenarios, such as machine learning, science, engineering, and financial projects.

Dynamic Allocations

Virtualization permits the ______________ of resources, including CPU, memory, storage, and even network bandwidth.

For example, when configuring a virtualization host for a private cloud deployment, Microsoft Hyper-V allows administrators to reserve CPU resource percentages—or even system resource percentages—for specific VMs.

Oversubscription

refers to the practice of allocating more resources to the VMs than the physical server actually has.

Assumes that not all resources will be required.

formula for provision vCPUs (AWS)

vCPU = number of cores x number of threads.

What are AWS Compute optimized images typically used for?

High-performance web servers, machine learning, video encoding, and dedicated game servers.

What are examples of AWS Compute optimized images?

C6g, C6gd, C6gn.

What are AWS Storage optimized images better suited for?

Hosting relational and NoSQL databases and data warehousing.

What are examples of AWS Storage optimized images?

I3 and I3en.

Shared vGPUs

Like CPUs, GPUs are exposed to VMs as available hardware. Such a device is called a vGPU. These vGPUs can be shared, where a single physical GPU is available to multiple VMs. Care must be taken that one VM does not overwhelm the GPU, reducing the performance of the other VMs.

Pass-through GPUs

configurations dedicate an entire graphics card to a single VM. provides for predictable and excellent performance.

Cloud administrators can select GPU-capable preconfigured instances in the same manner in which they select memory- or storage-optimized configurations.

Instructions Per Cycle (IPC)

A common performance measurement for CPUs, it is the average number of instructions executed per clock cycle. Also known as clock speed.

Converged virtualization

combines CPU, memory, storage, and network configurations into a single entity. However, these four components are independent and can be separated from each other.

Azure Mv2-series

This supports up to 416 vCPUs and 11400 GiB of memory. This instance is intended for very large in-memory workloads or in-memory databases.

Standard Ev30-series

This supports up to 64vCPUs and 432 GiB of memory. This instance is intended for general virtual server purposes.

Memory ballooning

A method where a hypervisor reclaims unused memory from a VM if the host is low on RAM.

only critical if the host hardware does not have enough memory to support the VMs running on it.

Benefits of STaaS:

Cost savings, if correctly managed

Disaster recovery

Scalability

Accessibility from multiple device platforms from any location

Easy sharing and collaboration

Potential drawbacks of STaaS :

Security and privacy of the data at rest

Security and privacy of the data in transit

Storage capacity, which could become expensive

Data control and retention

High availability

Downtime

Vendor lock-in

Software-defined service (SDS)

A storage architecture that separates the management software from the storage hardware.

The key characteristic of SDS is automated and policy-based provisioning and management for greater hardware flexibility.

SDS resides between the data request and the hardware, abstracting the hardware, and therefore allows a great deal more flexibility.

Policy-based management features of SDS

Compression

Data deduplication

Scalability

Thick and thin storage provisioning

Data replication

Thin Provisioning

A method for creating virtual disks, whereby the virtual disk expands dynamically and uses space from the storage pool as needed until it reaches the specified maximum size.

Dynamically growing the storage capacity on demand can result in performance degradation.

Thick Provisioning

The process of using a virtual hard disk file that has a fixed size.

soft quota

A type of quota that alerts users when they have exceeded the quota but doesn't prevent them from saving files.

Hard quotas

The storage limitation is enforced, and the user may not store additional data until space is freed or the quota is extended.

Azure Blob Storage

OBJECT SERVERLESS STORAGE. Store very large files and large amounts of unstructured files. Pay for what you store, unlimited storage, no-resizing volumes, filesystem protocols.

Three Tiers of Azure Blob Storage

Hot access tier: frequently accessed data

Cool access tier: infrequently accessed data. at least 30 days old

Archive tier: rarely accessed, at least 180 days old. Archived data is stored offline

AWS EBS io1/io2 (SSD)

highest performance for transactional workloads like MSSQL and IBM DB2. low latency, high throughput

AWS EBS st1

throughput optimized for frequently accessed data and throughput intensive applications

AWS EBS sc1

low-cost, cold storage for infrequently accessed data, such as archives

flash memory

SSDs

provide very fast access to data. SSDs are the standard in end-user workstations and servers and are becoming more common in servers. While SSD is more expensive, the performance trade-off is often worth the extra cost.

Spinning disks

HDDs

have been the data storage standard for workstations and servers for decades.

They are reliable and reasonably fast.

They are also relatively inexpensive, which is of particular concern for datacenters that may have hundreds of terabytes or more of content to store.

Hybrid Disks

use a mix of SSD and HDD technologies to attempt to maximize performance and cost. Frequently accessed data is stored on the flash memory portion of the disk, while less commonly used information is stored on the spinning disks.

Long-Term Storage

Data archived by services such as Azure Blob Storage may take hours to retrieve. This data may be stored based on compliance requirements or as secondary backup that the organization anticipates never needing.

Block Storage

Data is divided into chunks called blocks.

Not reliant on a server's filesystem, and data chunks may be distributed across several storage devices.

Organizes the data for the benefit of the data itself (where file storage organizes data for the system's benefit).

Can be very efficient, but it can also be very expensive.

Used with SANs, which can also be difficult and expensive to implement.

It can be very effective for larger chunks of data that are modified frequently, such as databases.

Block Storage Examples

Examples:

AWS EBS

GCP Persistent Disk

File Storage

very common. It's what you're familiar with on workstations or laptops.

Data is stored as a discrete file, such as a document, a spreadsheet, or an image file.

NAS devices also use file storage.

Information about retrieving data is stored in filesystem metadata.

This type of storage is inexpensive and useful for relatively small pieces of data.

Access is provided via shared filesystems, such as network file system (NFS) and common Internet file system (CIFS).

Essentially a cloud-based NAS that shares folders to client computers, whether they are on premises or in the cloud infrastructure.

File Storage Examples

AWS Elastic File System (EFS)

Azure File Storage

GCP Filestore