Cloud Computing Interview Questions and Answers

This page contains the collection of Cloud Computing Interview Questions and Answers / Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) u
category Cloud Computing. These questions are collected from various resources like informative websites, forums, blogs, disc
boards including MSDN and Wikipedia. These listed questions can surely help in preparing for Cloud Computing interview or jo

How does cloud computing provides on-demand functionality?

Cloud computing is a metaphor used for internet. It provides on-demand access to virtualized IT resources that can be shared
or subscribed by you. It provides an easy way to provide configurable resources by taking it from a shared pool. The pool cons
networks, servers, storage, applications and services.
What is the difference between scalability and elasticity?
Scalability is a characteristic of cloud computing through which increasing workload can be handled by increasing in proportion
of resource capacity. It allows the architecture to provide on demand resources if the requirement is being raised by the traffic
elasticity is being one of the characteristic provide the concept of commissioning and decommissioning of large amount of reso
capacity dynamically. It is measured by the speed by which the resources are coming on demand and the usage of the resour
What are the different layers of cloud computing?
Cloud computing consists of 3 layers in the hierarchy and these are as follows:
1. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides cloud infrastructure in terms of hardware like memory, processor speed etc
2. Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides cloud application platform for the developers.
3. Software as a Service (SaaS) provides cloud applications which are used by the user directly without installing anything
system. The application remains on the cloud and it can be saved and edited in there only.
What resources are provided by infrastructure as a service?
Infrastructure as a Service provides physical and virtual resources that are used to build a cloud. Infrastructure deals with the
complexities of maintaining and deploying of the services provided by this layer. The infrastructure here is the servers, storag
hardware systems.
How important is platform as a service?
Platform as a Service is an important layer in cloud architecture. It is built on the infrastructure model, which provides resourc
computers, storage and network. This layer includes organizing and operate the resources provided by the below layer. It is a
responsible to provide complete virtualization of the infrastructure layer to make it look like a single server and keep it hidden
outside world.
What does software as a service provide?
Software as Service is another layer of cloud computing, which provides cloud applications like google is doing, it is providing
for the user to save their documents on the cloud and create as well. It provides the applications to be created on fly without
installing any extra software component. It provides built in software to create wide varieties of applications and documents a
with other people online.
What are the different deployment models?
Cloud computing supports many deployment models and they are as follows:
- Private Cloud
Organizations choose to build there private cloud as to keep the strategic, operation and other reasons to themselves and the
secure to do it. It is a complete platform which is fully functional and can be owned, operated and restricted to only an organiz
industry. More organizations have moved to private clouds due to security concerns. Virtual private cloud is being used that op
hosting company.
- Public Cloud
These are the platforms which are public means open to the people for use and deployment. For example, google, amazon etc
on a few layers like cloud application, infrastructure providing and providing platform markets.
- Hybrid Clouds
It is the combination of public and private cloud. It is the most robust approach to implement cloud architecture as it includes
functionalities and features of both the worlds. It allows organizations to create their own cloud and allow them to give the con
someone else as well.
What are the different datacenters deployed for this?
Cloud computing is made up of various datacenters put together in a grid form. It consists of different datacenters like:
- Containerized Datacenters
These are the traditional datacenters that allow high level of customization with servers, mainframe and other resources. It re
planning, cooling, networking and power to access and work.
- Low-Density Datacenters
These datacenters are optimized to give high performance. In these datacenters the space constraint is being removed and th
increased density. It has a drawback that with high density the heat issue also creeps in. These datacenters are very much su
develop the cloud infrastructure.
What is the use of API�s in cloud services?
API stands for Application programming interface is very useful in cloud platforms as it allows easy implementation of it on the
removes the need to write full fledged programs. It provides the instructions to make the communication between one or mor
applications. It also allows easy to create application with ease and link the cloud services with other systems.
What are the different modes of software as a service?
Software as a Service provides cloud application platform on which user can create application with the tools provided. The mo
software as a service are defined as:
1. Simple multi-tenancy: in this each user has its own resources that are different from other users. It is an inefficient mode
user has to put more time and money to add more infrastructure if the demand rises in less time to deliver.
2. Fine grain multi-tenancy: in this the functionality remains the same that the resources can be shared to many. But it is m
efficient as the resources are shared not the data and permission within an application.
What is the security aspects provided with cloud?
Security is one of the major aspects which come with any application and service used by the user. Companies or organization
much more concerned with the security provided with the cloud. There are many levels of security which has to be provided w
environment such as:
- Identity management: it authorizes the application service or hardware component to be used by authorized users.
- Access control: permissions has to be provided to the users so that they can control the access of other users who are ente
the cloud environment.
- Authorization and authentication: provision should be made to allow the authorized and authenticated people only to acc
change the applications and data.
What is the difference between traditional datacenters and cloud?
Cloud computing uses the concept of datacenter as it is the datacenter is based on the tradition one so the difference between
as follows:
- Cost of the traditional datacenter is higher, due to heating issues and other hardware/software related issues but this is not
with the cloud computing infrastructure.
- It gets scaled when the demand increases. Most of the cost is being spent on the maintenance being performed on the datac
whereas cloud platform requires minimum maintenance and not very expert hand to handle them.
What are the three cost factors involves in cloud data center?
Cloud data center doesn't require experts to operate it, but it requires skilled people to see the maintenance, maintain the wo
to keep the track of the traffic. The labor cost is 6% of the total cost to operate the cloud data center. Power distribution and c
the datacenter cost 20% of the total cost. Computing cost is at the end and is the highest as it is where lots of resources and
has to be done. It costs the maximum left percentage.
How the cloud services are measured?
Cloud computing provides the services to the organizations so they can run their applications and install them on the cloud. Vi
is used to deploy the cloud computing models as it provides a hidden layer between the user and the physical layer of the sys
cloud services are measured in terms of use. Pay as much as you use that can be on the basis of hours or months or years. C
allow users to pay for only what they use and according to the demand the charges or the prices gets increased.
What are the optimizing strategies used in cloud?
To optimize the cost and other resources there is a concept of three-data-center which provides backups in cases of disaster r
allows you to keep all the data intact in the case of any failure within the system. System management can be done more effic
carrying out pre-emptive tasks on the services and the processes which are running for the job. Security can be more advance
only the limited users to access the services.
What are different data types used in cloud computing?
Cloud computing is going all together for a different look as it now includes different data types like emails, contracts, images,
The amount of data increasing day by day and cloud computing is requiring new and efficient data types to store them. For ex
want to save video then you need a data type to save that. Latency requirements are increasing as the demand is increasing.
are going for lower latency for many applications.
What are the security laws which take care of the data in the cloud?
The security laws which are implements to secure data in the cloud are as follows: Input validation: controls the input data wh
to any system. Processing: control that the data is being processed correctly and completely in an application. File: control the
manipulated in any type of file. Output reconciliation: control the data that has to be reconciled from input to output. Backup
recovery: control the security breaches logs and the problems which has occurred while creating the back.
How to secure your data for transport in cloud?
Cloud computing provides very good and easy to use feature to an organization, but at the same time it brings lots of question
secure is the data, which has to be transported from one place to another in cloud. So, to make sure it remains secure when i
from point A to point B in cloud, check that there is no data leak with the encryption key implemented with the data you send
What do you understand from VPN?
VPN stands for virtual private network; it is a private cloud which manages the security of the data during the transport in the
environment. VPN allows an organization to make a public network as private network and use it to transfer files and other res
network.
What does a VPN consists of?
VPN is known as virtual private network and it consists of two important things:
1. Firewall: it acts as a barrier between the public network and any private network. It filters the messages that are getting e
between the networks. It also protects from any malicious activity being done on the network.
2. Encryption: it is used to protect the sensitive data from professional hackers and other spammers who are usually remain
get the data. With a message always there will be a key with which you can match the key provided to you.
Name few platforms which are used for large scale cloud computing
There are many platforms available for cloud computing but to model the large scale distributed computing the platforms are
1. MapReduce: is software that is being built by Google to support distributed computing. It is a framework that works on lar
data. It utilizes the cloud resources and distributes the data to several other computers known as clusters. It has the capabilit
with both structured and non-structured data.
2. Apache Hadoop: is an open source distributed computing platform. It is being written in Java. It creates a pool of comput
hadoop file system. It then clusters the data elements and applies the hash algorithms that are similar. Then it creates copy o
that already exist.
What are some examples of large cloud providers and their databases?
Cloud computing has many providers and it is supported on the large scale. The providers with their databases are as follows:
- Google bigtable: it is a hybrid cloud that consists of a big table that is spilt into tables and rows. MapReduce is used for mo
generating the data.
- Amazon SimpleDB: is a webservice that is used for indexing and querying the data. It allows the storing, processing and cr
query on the data set within the cloud platform. It has a system that automatically indexes the data.
- Cloud based SQL: is introduced by Microsoft and it is based on SQL database. it provides data storage by the usage of rela
in the cloud. The data can be accessed from the cloud using the client application.
What are some open source cloud computing platform databases?
Cloud computing platform has various databases that are in support. The open source databases that are developed to suppor
follows:
1. MongoDB: is an open source database system which is schema free and document oriented database. It is written in C++
provides tables and high storage space.
2. CouchDB: is an open source database system based on Apache server and used to store the data efficiently
3. LucidDB: is the database made in Java/C++ for data warehousing. It provides features and functionalities to maintain data
warehouse.
What essential things a user should know before going for cloud computing platform?
A user should know some parameters by which he can go for the cloud computing services. The parameters are as follows:
1. User should know the data integrity in cloud computing: It is a measure to ensure integrity like the data is accurate,
and reasonable.
2. Compliance: user should make sure that proper rules and regulations are followed while implementing the structure.
3. Loss of data: user should know about the provisions that are provided in case of loss of data so that backup and recovery
possible.
4. Business continuity plans: user should think about does the cloud services provide him uninterrupted data resources.
5. Uptime: user should know about the uptime the cloud computing platform provides and how helpful it is for the business.
6. Data storage costs: user should find out about the cost which you have to pay before you go for cloud computing.
What are system integrators?
Systems integrators are the important part of cloud computing platform. It provides the strategy of the complicated process u
design a cloud platform. It includes well defined architecture to find the resources and the characteristics which have to be inc
cloud computing. Integrators plan the users cloud strategy implementation. Integrators have knowledge about data center cre
also allow more accurate private and hybrid cloud creation.
What is the requirement of virtualization platforms in implementing cloud?
Virtualization is the basis of the cloud computing and there are many platforms that are available like VMware is a technology
provides the provision to create private cloud and provide a bridge to connect external cloud with private cloud. There are thre
features that have to be identified to make a private cloud that is:
- Cloud operating system.
- Manage the Service level policies
- Virtualization keeps the user level and the backend level concepts different from each other so that a seamless environment
created between both.
What is the use of eucalyptus in cloud computing environment?
Eucalyptus stands for Elastic Utility Computing Architecture for Linking Your Programs to Useful Systems and provides an open
software infrastructure to implement clusters in cloud computing platform. It is used to build private, public and hybrid clouds
produce your own datacenter into a private cloud and allow you to extend the functionality to many other organizations. Euca
provides APIs to be used with the web services to cope up with the demand of resources used in the private clouds.
Explain different layers which define cloud architecture
Cloud computing architecture consists of many layers which help it to be more organized and can be managed from one place
are as follows:
1. Cloud controller or CLC is the top most level in the hirerachy which is used to manage the virtualized resources like servers
and storage with the user APIs.
2. Walrus is used for the storage and act as a storage controller to manage the demands of the users. It maintains a scalable
control the virtual machine images and user data.
3. Cluster Controller or CC is used to control all the virtual machines for executions the virtual machines are stored on the nod
manages the virtual networking between Virtual machines and external users.
4. Storage Controller or SC provides a storage area in block form that are dynamically attached by Virtual machines.
5. Node Controller or NC is at the lowest level and provides the functionality of a hypervisor that controls the VMs activities, w
includes execution, management and termination of many instances.
How user will gain from utility computing?
Utility computing allow the user to pay per use means whatever they are using only for that they have to pay. It is a plug in th
be managed by the organizations on deciding what type of services has to be deployed from the cloud. Utility computing allow
to think and implement the services according to them. Most organizations go for hybrid strategy that combines internal delive
that are hosted or outsourced services.
Is there any difference in cloud computing and computing for mobiles?
Mobile cloud computing uses the same concept but it just adds a device of mobile. Cloud computing comes in action when a ta
get kept on the internet rather then individual devices. It provides users on demand access to the data which they have to ret
Applications run on the remote server, and then given to the user to be able to, store and manage it from the mobile platform

Cloud Computing Basic Interview Questions and Answers

This page contains the collection of Cloud Computing Basic Interview Questions and Answers / Frequently Asked Questions (FA
category Cloud Computing. These questions are collected from various resources like informative websites, forums, blogs, disc
boards including MSDN and Wikipedia. These listed questions can surely help in preparing for Cloud Computing Basic interview

What is Hypervisor in Cloud Computing and its types?

The hypervisor is a virtual machine monitor (VMM) that manages resources for virtual machines. The name hypervisor is sugg
a supervisory tool for the virtual machines. There are mainly two types of hypervisors :
-> Type-1: the guest Vm runs directly over the host hardware, e.g Xen, Hyper-V, VmWare ESXi
-> Type-2: the guest Vm runs over hardware through a host OS, e.g Kvm, Oracle virtualbox
Are Type-1 Hypervisors better in performance than Type-2 Hypervisors and Why?
Yes the Type-1 Hypervisors are better in performance as compared to Type-2 hypervisors because Type-1 hypervisors does no
through a host OS, they utilize all resources directly from Host hardware. In cloud implementation Type-1 hypervisors are use
than Type-2 because Cloud servers need to run multiple OS images and it should be noted that if OS images are run on host a
case of Type-2, the resources will get wasted.
What are the characteristics on which a Cloud Computing Model should be selected for implementing and managi
workload?
Scalability is a characteristic of cloud computing through which increasing workload can be handled by increasing in proportion
of resource capacity. It allows the architecture to provide on demand resources if the requirement is being raised by the traffic
elasticity is being one of the characteristic provide the concept of commissioning and decommissioning of large amount of reso
capacity dynamically. It is measured by the speed by which the resources are coming on demand and the usage of the resour
What do you understand by CaaS?
CaaS is a terminology given in telecom industry as Communication as a Service. The Voice-over-Ip (VoIP) follows a same deliv
CaaS can offer the enterprise user features such as desktop call control, presence, unified messaging, and desktop faxing. In
the enterprise features, CaaS also has a set of services for contact center automation that includes IVR, ACD, call recording, m
routing (e-mail and text chat), and screen pop integration.
What is the minimal requirement to implement an IAAS Cloud?
The minimal requirement to implement are basically three things:
-> OS to support hypervisor or a hypervisor.
- Preferably open-source software like Linux and Xen hypervisor
-> Networking topology and implementation.
- Public Network or Private network with Level 3 Switch
-> Selection of cloud model as per requirement or business.
- SaaS, Software as a Service
- PaaS, Platform as a Service
- CaaS, Communication as a Service
How is the Cloud Computing different from primitive Client-Server Architecture?
The primitive Client-Server architecture is a one-to-one communication between only two physical machines namely Client ma
Server machine (datacenter). Whereas the cloud computing, infrastructure is similar at the client side but varies at server-side
server-side contains a main Cloud Controller that forwards the request to its worker machines known as Nodes. These nodes a
computing machines that dedicate all its resources to process application. These nodes are maintained in clusters. So a cloud
infrastructure is quite complicated on server side that processes all the requests from clients and send the result back.
Why should one prefer public cloud over private cloud?
The cloud technology is the best example of sustainable technology that utilizes all the computing resources. If a person need
quick business and wants to host its website, he need not require to setup a full-fledged private cloud. Rather he should go fo
cloud hosting that provides different pay-per-use subscriptions, which could actually result in being economical. There are num
vendors that provide such services like godaddy.com etc.
Is it cost effective to implement a private cloud rather than a public cloud and why?
It depends on the type of business that demands a cloud setup. Suppose if the subscription on a public cloud for an applicatio
be deployed on OS images is proving to be more costly then to buy some new datacenters and maintain them. Then obviously
private cloud has to be setup instead of a public cloud. This public clouds follow utility billing methodology as electricity bill for
Does network topology play an important role in deciding the success of a Cloud Infrastructure?
The network topology plays a vital role in selecting a cloud model and success of that model
Public Cloud
These are the platforms which are public means open to the people for use and deployment. For example, google, amazon etc
on a few layers like cloud application, infrastructure providing and providing platform markets.
Private Cloud
Organizations choose to build their private cloud as to keep the strategic, operation and other reasons to themselves and they
secure to do it.
Hybrid Clouds
It is the combination of public and private cloud. It is the most robust approach to implement cloud architecture as it includes
functionalities and features of both the worlds.
Is Cloud Computing an application?
The Cloud Computing is not an application but it is a methodology that deploys application in a custom fashion on a server. It
learned as an advance model of client-server architecture that is highly flexible, scalable and configurable. This architecture le
high performance out of machines with quite an ease of management.