1. Explain what is cloud computing?

- The practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and
process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer is Cloud Computing.
- Basically, the concept of Data Centers is what Cloud Computing has resulted in.

2. State the importance of cloud computing / State the advantages of Cloud Computing
Benefits of Cloud Computing
- Data backup and storage of data.
- Powerful server capabilities.
- Expensive hardware is not required at Client side and only powerful Internet connection is
required.

3. Explain the different types of services provided by cloud computing with examples
a) IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)
- Provides virtualized computing resources over the Internet.
- Also known as Hardware as a Service.
- No worries about the underlying physical machine (at user-end).
- Abstracts the user from the physical machine as physical machine is provided by cloud provider.
- The main advantage of using IaaS is that it helps users to avoid the cost and complexity of
purchasing and managing the physical servers.
- Examples, AWS EC2, Azure, Google Compute Engine, etc.

b) PaaS (Platform as a Service)

- No control over the underlying architecture including operating systems, storage, servers, etc.
- The cloud provider gives the ability to the customer to deploy customer created application using
programming languages, tools, etc. that are provided the cloud provider.
- PaaS cloud computing platform is created for the programmer to develop, test, run, deploy and
manage the application.
- It provides Infrastructure + Platform
- Examples, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Azure, Heroku, etc.

c) SaaS (Software as a Service)

- Cloud provider leases applications or software which are owned by them to its client.
- Example, Salesforce provides the CRM (Customer Relation Manager) on a cloud infrastructure to its
clients and charges them for it but the software is owned by Salesforce itself.
- It provides Infrastructure + Platform + Software
- Examples, Salesforce, Dropbox, Google Apps like Docs, Slides, Drive, etc.

4. Explain the various deployment models with its advantages / disadvantages and when is a
particular deployment model used.

- Deployment model dictates the type of cloud that is to be used for computing purposes.
a) Public Cloud
- Used when data/usage/service is not of sensitive nature and so security is not a major concern.
- Preferred because it’s a cheaper option.

b) Private Cloud
- Used when the usage is of a sensitive/critical nature so security is a major concern.
- It is much more expensive than public or hybrid clouds.
c) Hybrid Cloud
- Used when part of the usage is critical whereas other parts of it are not.
- A bit more practical implementation that is cost efficient as well.

5. What is NIST model of cloud computing

Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a
shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and
services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service
provider interaction.

6. Mention any recent trend in the domain of cloud computing

Automation in Cloud Computing

Integrating Cloud Computing with Big Data and IoT
Serverless Computing (servers provided by cloud providers)

7. Explain what is virtualization and its importance in cloud computing

- Virtualization works by abstracting physical hardware and devices from the applications running on
that hardware.
- The process of virtualization manages and provisions the system's resources, including processor,
memory, storage and network resources.
- This enables the system to host more than one workload simultaneously, making more cost- and
energy-efficient use of the available servers and systems across the organization

8. Explain the different types of virtualization (hypervisors) and the platforms available for the
same
Type 1 Hypervisor
- A bare-metal hypervisor (Type 1) is a layer of software we install directly on top of a physical server
and its underlying hardware.
- There is no software or any operating system in between, hence the name bare-metal hypervisor.
- Examples,
VMware vSphere with ESX/ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix Hypervisor (formerly known as Xen Server)

Type 2 Hypervisor
- This type of hypervisor runs inside of an operating system of a physical host machine.
- This is why we call type 2 hypervisors – hosted hypervisors. As opposed to type 1 hypervisors that
run directly on the hardware, hosted hypervisors have one software layer underneath.
- Examples, Oracle VM VirtualBox, VMware Workstation Pro/VMware Fusion

9. State the difference between type 1 and type 2 hypervisor

- In a Type 1 Hypervisor, there is no software or any operating system in between and it directly runs
on the hardware, hence the name bare-metal hypervisor.
- A Type 2 Hypervisor runs inside of an operating system of a physical host machine.

10. What is IaaS?

Same as Question 3. a)

11. Explain the way in which IaaS is implemented on different commercial cloud service providers.
Don’t know how to explain this other than just giving examples of various IaaS services like EC2,
Azure IaaS, Google Compute Engine, etc.
12. Enlist some opensource IaaS which can be deployed with your own resources
Eucalyptus
OpenStack
Nimbus
CloudStack

13. Explain the architecture of IaaS Service (Eucalyptus) which you have implemented
Following are the components of Eucalyptus architecture,
Cloud Controller (CLC): This is the controller that manages virtual resources like servers, network and
storage. It is at the highest level in hierarchy. It is a Java program with web interface for outside
world.

Walrus: This is another Java program in Eucalyptus that is equivalent to AWS S3 storage. It provides
persistent storage.

Cluster Controller (CC): It is a C program that is the front end for a Eucalyptus cloud cluster. It can
communicate with Storage controller and Node controller.

Storage Controller (SC): It is a Java program equivalent to EBS in AWS. It can interface with Cluster
Controller and Node Controller to manage persistent data via Walrus.

Node Controller (NC): It is a C program that can host a virtual machine instance. It is at the lowest
level in Eucalyptus cloud.

VMWare Broker: It is an optional component in Eucalyptus. It provides AWS compatible interface to

VMWare environment.
14. Explain the steps involved in setting up IaaS implemented during lab session
1. Download the Eucalyptus Quick Start iso file.
2. Create a new Virtual Machine using VMWare and use the downloaded iso file for the OS and
allocate the required amount of RAM and Hard Disk space.
3. Start the newly created VM and install Eucalyptus according to the installation wizard.
4. Create admin account by setting username and password.
5. Once installation is complete, open the Eucalyptus User Console.
6. Login using the admin credentials added in step 4.
7. Now you can create instances and start using Eucalyptus for IaaS.

15. Explain the benefit of having IaaS implement through cloud / opensource
- The main advantage of using IaaS is that it helps users to avoid the cost and complexity of
purchasing and managing the physical servers.
- Pay for What You Use: Fees are computed via usage-based metrics.
- Dynamically Scale: Rapidly add capacity in peak times and scale down as needed.
- Increase Security: IaaS providers invest heavily in security technology and expertise.
- Future-Proof: Access to state-of-the-art data center, hardware and operating systems.
- Reallocate IT Resources: Free up IT staff for higher value projects.
- Reduce Downtime: IaaS enables instant recovery from outages.
- Level the Playing Field: Small-scale firms and companies can compete with much larger firms.

16. Explain if you have used any commercial IaaS for your project or any other purpose
EC2

17. What is SaaS?

Same as Question 3. c)

18. Explain how the SaaS implemented by any commercial cloud service provider
Google Drive is a SaaS that provides users the capability of storing their data on cloud storage. It
syncs across your Google account and so can be used on desktops as well as mobiles with ease.

19. Enlist different opensource SaaS which can be deployed with your own resources
NextCloud
Hadoop
OpenStack

20. Explain the steps involved in setting up SaaS on your machine (pre-requisite , configuration
files, installation commands etc.)
Steps for installing NextCloud on Windows,
1. Install WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)
2. Once WSL is up and running with a Linux OS installed in it, install Apache + PHP + MySQL/MariaDB

3. Download & Install NextCloud server on Windows 10

sudo apt install unzip
wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/nextcloud-19.0.1.zip
unzip nextcloud-19.0.1.zip

4. Copy the Nextcloud files to the Apache web directory (/var/www/html)

sudo mv nextcloud /var/www/html/nextcloud/
sudo mkdir /var/www/html/nextcloud/data
[Set the permission to the nextcloud directory]
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/nextcloud/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/nextcloud

5. Create a new configuration file called nextcloud.conf

6. Enable the newly created site and start the services
7. Create MySQL/MariaDB database for NextCloud
8. Visit nextcloud web-app by visiting http://localhost/nextcloud, this will start the process of
creating an admin account.
9. Once an admin account has been created, you can start using NextCloud.

21. What is the primary benefit of having SaaS implemented

Cost – Don’t have to manage the servers being used for storage.
Invisibility – Storage centers don’t take up office space.
Security
Automation – Data backup happens automatically; user only has to select which data should be
backed up.
Data Recovery

22. Explain if you have used any commercial SaaS for your project or any other purpose
Amazon S3

23. Why is it necessary to secure data on cloud?

Because the data is hosted online, it can be accessed by unauthorized users with malicious intent if
the data is not properly secured.

24. Can you suggest any best practices for securing data on commercial cloud?
- Encrypting the data with passwords.
- Authenticating the data using Authenticator apps, i.e., 2 Factor Authentication.
- Creating user roles/groups so that users only get access to the data which they have clearance for.

25. How can you secure the data on any of the opensource tool (NextCloud)?
- Changing Data Directory from default location to a new location so that the data cannot be found
that easily.
- Using secure password for admin account.
- Enabling 2FA for NextCloud Account and save the backup codes for this purpose.
- Enable Server-side encryption module

26. Security of data on cloud should it be the responsibility of user uploading it to cloud or the
service provider – state your views on it? Currently what is the picture with major cloud service
providers?
Depends on the price being paid by the user. At a premium price, it is the responsibility of the
service provider as it already is in the current market. But in case of free plans or open-source
services, the responsible shouldn’t fully fall under the hands of the service provider as user is
expected to be more knowledgeable in this case and should know standard security practices.

27. What is PaaS? State any PaaS service you have used?
Question 3. b)
Used PaaS service, Amazon Elastic Beanstalk

28. Can you state certain services which come under PaaS under the various commercial service
providers?
Amazon Elastic Beanstalk, Heroku, App Services (Azure), Google App Engine
29. How to deploy web applications on commercial cloud?
Using PaaS services like Heroku, Amazon Elastic Beanstalk, App Services, etc.

30. How is Azure useful in setting up Web Applications?

It provides the App Services module is a PaaS service of Azure and provides the functionality of
deploying Web-apps in various programming languages with built-in support as well as ability to add
cloud databases directly into the service from the start.

31. What is the kind of policy that Azure implements for a free tier subscription?
It provides a credit amount that can be used for using various Azure services.
It provides some services for free regardless of credit for the first 12 months after which they
become paid.
Then it provides some services for free forever but there’s an upper limit on how much of the service
you can use depending on what kind of service it is.

32. Which Azure services have you used can you explain its importance in brief.
Azure App Services for deploying web-app.
Azure ML Studio for training ML models, it has the very unique feature of visualizing the entire ML
workflow in the form of an interactive flowchart which makes the whole process really easy and it
has a lot of open-source features built into the service itself.

33. State any real-life platform / application where Azure is used extensively currently
1) Verizon: $79.9 million
2) MSI Computer: $78 million
3) LG Electronics: $76.7 million
4) CenturyLink: $61.9 million
5) NTT America: $48.7 million
6) Wikimedia Foundation: $42.6 million
7) LinkedIn Corp: $41.2 million
8) News Corp: $40.5 million
9) Adobe: $39.9 million
10) Intel: $38.5 million

34. What are resource groups / resources / regions in Azure?

- Azure Resources Groups are logical collections of virtual machines, storage accounts, virtual
networks, web apps, databases, and/or database servers. Typically, users will group related
resources for an application, divided into groups for production and non-production — but you can
subdivide further as needed.
- A region is a set of datacenters deployed within a latency-defined perimeter and connected
through a dedicated regional low-latency network.

35. What is AWS? State the kind of services it provides.

AWS (Amazon Web Services) is the Cloud Computing platform for Amazon. It provides all possible
services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and is the market leader in the cloud computing domain.

36. Which AWS services are you aware of under the various categories of IaaS , PaaS and SaaS ?
IaaS: EC2
PaaS: Elastic BeanStalk, Lambda, Lightsail
SaaS: S3, DynamoDB, Rekognition
37. State the various services you have used in AWS while performing lab sessions.
S3, EC2, DynamoDB, Rekognition, SNS, LightSail

38. What is ppk file, pem file, RDP, etc. with respect to EC2.
- PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) is a base64 container format for encoding keys and certificates, for
EC2, it contains the private key used for connecting to EC2 instance.
- The EC2 service allows users to lease virtual systems so that they can run their applications on it.
However if one plans to use PuTTY's SSH client to connect, then they are first required to convert the
.pem file to .ppk (PuTTY private key) using PuTTYgen and then use PuTTY application to join local and
remote hosts.

39. What are buckets, object with respect to S3

Bucket is a container for files that are uploaded to S3.
These buckets can be used for partitioning uploaded files based on business logic as well as set
permissions and access rights to various users across the company in a production environment.

40. What is the difference between Simple and Dynamo DB?

- SimpleDB has scaling limitations, but it can be a good fit for smaller workloads that require query
flexibility. Amazon SimpleDB automatically indexes all item attributes and thus supports query
flexibility at the cost of performance and scale.
- So it's a trade-off between performance/scalability and simplicity/flexibility, i.e. for simpler
scenarios it might still be easier getting started with SimpleDB to avoid the complexities of
architecturing your application for DynamoDB
- Amazon DynamoDB is designed to maintain predictably high performance and to be highly cost
efficient for workloads of any scale, from the smallest to the largest internet-scale applications.

41. What is SNS service about? Who are subscribers? How can subscribers unsubscribe to the
channel to deactivate the notifications etc.
It stands for Simple Notification Service.
Its use is to send notifications via email or SMS to subscribers.
Subscribers are users that have accepted to receive notifications regarding your service/app on the
channel.
This allows users to receive updates or important messages regarding their actions like password
change, email verification, etc. and also messages regarding the app itself like new update notes,
future plans, etc.
The SNS message sent to the user has a link for unsubscribing from the channel.

42. What kind of pricing does AWS offer?

43. What is the billing policy difference between AWS, Azure and GCP. State any other primary
difference you can state between these leading cloud service providers.