The Evolution of Cloud Computing

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What prompted the shift from mainframes to commodity servers in IT data centers?

The need for higher utilization rates
The advent of fast and inexpensive microprocessors (correct)
The collapse of the mainframe era
Increased demand for personal computers

What was the primary reason mainframes had to operate at high utilization rates?

To increase processing power
Because they were very expensive (correct)
To improve data storage
To reduce costs

Which type of computers became popular among small businesses and on college campuses from 1960 to 1980?

Microprocessors
Minicomputers (correct)
Mainframes
Personal computers

What is the primary goal of distributed computing?

To make a network work as a single computer (D) Signup and view all the answers

What is a characteristic of a distributed system?

It consists of multiple software components that are on multiple computers (B) Signup and view all the answers

What type of microprocessor was used in personal computers from 1970 to 1990?

VLSI microprocessor (C) Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary focus of most production grids, such as TeraGrid and EGEE?

Sharing compute and storage resources across different administrative domains (D) Signup and view all the answers

What is a characteristic of a computing grid?

A dynamic aggregation of heterogeneous computing nodes (B) Signup and view all the answers

What is the benefit of grid computing in terms of resources?

It enables transparent access to distributed resources (B) Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary advantage of cloud computing in terms of hardware?

It allows for the use of virtual hardware (A) Signup and view all the answers

What is a challenge of managing large amounts of data with personal computers?

It becomes difficult for computers to process and manage the data (B) Signup and view all the answers

What is a key difference between cluster computing and grid computing?

Scale, with grid computing being nationwide or worldwide (D) Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary characteristic of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)?

It is a self-contained module designed for business functionalities (A) Signup and view all the answers

What enables people to access content and run applications over the internet?

Network connection and bandwidth (B) Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary advantage of Web 2.0 services?

They offer predefined blocks or templates for easy use (C) Signup and view all the answers

What is the role of internet technologies in cloud computing?

They rely on centralized management and network connection (B) Signup and view all the answers

What is the characteristic of web services like XML and HTTP?

They use common mechanisms for web delivery services (D) Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary advantage of hosting a website on the internet?

It allows anyone to create multiple websites (D) Signup and view all the answers

What is the main benefit of advance reservations of capacity in IaaS providers?

Ensuring resource availability at a specific time frame (D) Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary function of automatic scaling in IaaS providers?

To set conditions for scaling up and down based on application metrics (C) Signup and view all the answers

What is the main purpose of a service-level agreement (SLA) in IaaS providers?

To express the provider's commitment to delivery of a certain quality of service (B) Signup and view all the answers

What is the typical hypervisor used in IaaS offerings?

Open-source Xen (B) Signup and view all the answers

What is the result of automatic scaling increasing the number of virtual servers?

Automatically distributing traffic among available servers (B) Signup and view all the answers

What is the benefit of Amazon Reserved Instances?

Paying a fixed amount of money in advance to guarantee resource availability (A) Signup and view all the answers

What is a key requirement for IaaS providers to deploy and maintain their cloud offerings?

Expertise in low-level aspects such as Linux, networking, and virtualization (D) Signup and view all the answers

What is the main purpose of a persistence layer in PaaS platforms?

To allow applications to record their state and recover it in case of crashes (D) Signup and view all the answers

What is the main difference between IaaS and PaaS providers?

IaaS requires expertise in low-level aspects, while PaaS provides a high-level abstraction (D) Signup and view all the answers

What is the name of Amazon Web Services' virtual server offering?

EC2 (C) Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary benefit of using PaaS providers?

Little or no concern to low-level details of the platform (C) Signup and view all the answers

What is the purpose of Amazon Web Services' SimpleDB service?

Structured data storage (C) Signup and view all the answers