Q1. What is Cloud Computing?

A: Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of computing services (servers, storage,

networking, databases, software, analytics, etc.) over the internet, with a pay-as-you-go pricing
model.

Q2. What are the major cloud service models?

A:

• IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service): Provides virtualized infrastructure (VMs, storage,

networking). Example: AWS EC2, Azure VM.

• PaaS (Platform as a Service): Provides a platform for app development without

managing infrastructure. Example: Azure App Service, Google App Engine.

• SaaS (Software as a Service): Provides ready-to-use software applications via cloud.

Example: Gmail, Office 365, Salesforce.

Q3. What are the main deployment models in cloud computing?

A:

• Public Cloud (shared infrastructure, e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP).

• Private Cloud (dedicated infrastructure, e.g., VMware vSphere).

• Hybrid Cloud (mix of public & private).

• Community-cloud (using multiple cloud providers).

Q4. What is virtualization in cloud computing?

A: Virtualization is the process of creating a virtual version of resources (servers, storage, OS,
networks). It enables multiple workloads to run on a single physical machine.

Q5. What is a Hypervisor? What are its types?

A:

• A Hypervisor is virtualization software that allows multiple VMs to run on a single

physical host.

• Type 1 (Bare-metal): Runs directly on hardware (VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V).

 • Type 2 (Hosted): Runs on top of an OS (VMware Workstation, VirtualBox).

Q6. What does “provisioning a VM” mean?

A: Provisioning a VM means creating and configuring a virtual machine instance with defined
CPU, memory, storage, and network resources.

Q7. What is Azure App Service?

A: A PaaS offering from Azure for hosting web apps, APIs, and backends with built-in scaling,
security, and CI/CD integration.

Q8. What is Azure Functions?

A: A serverless computing service that runs event-driven code without managing infrastructure.
Triggers can be HTTP requests, timers, or messages from queues.

Q9. What is Azure Service Bus?

A: A cloud-based enterprise messaging service for reliable communication between
apps/services using queues (point-to-point) and topics (publish/subscribe).

Q10. What is Google Firestore?

A: A NoSQL document database (part of Firebase) for building scalable, real-time apps. Stores
data in collections and documents with offline support and auto-scaling.

Q11. What are the key areas of compliance in cloud computing?

A:

• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) → Protects personal data in the EU.

• HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) → Secures medical data.

• PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) → Protects payment
transactions.

• ISO/IEC 27001 → Global standard for information security management.

Q12. What is SSL Offloading?
A: SSL offloading means a load balancer or proxy handles SSL/TLS encryption & decryption,
reducing the workload on backend servers.

Q13. How is data secured in the cloud?

A:

• Encryption (at rest & in transit).

• Identity & Access Management (IAM).

• Security boundaries (tenant isolation).

• Auditing & compliance.

Q14. What is Cloud Bursting?

A: Cloud Bursting is when an application runs in a private cloud but automatically “bursts” into
a public cloud during peak demand to handle extra load.

Q15. What is Load Balancing in the cloud?

A: Distributing incoming traffic across multiple servers to ensure high availability, reliability, and
performance.

• Basic Load Balancer → Routes requests to available servers.

• Advanced (ADC/ADN) → Provides SSL offloading, caching, compression, and global

failover.

Q16. What is Multi-region and Cross-region Failover?

A:

• Multi-region: Deploying apps across multiple cloud regions.

• Cross-region failover: Automatically rerouting traffic to another region if one fails →

ensures disaster recovery.
Q17. What is Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)?
A: SOA is an architecture where applications are built as a collection of loosely coupled services
that communicate over a network using message-based transactions (SOAP/REST).

6. Cloud Monitoring & Management

Q18. What is Cloud Monitoring?

A: Cloud monitoring involves tracking performance, availability, and security of cloud resources
using tools like:

• AWS CloudWatch,

• Azure Monitor,

• Google Stackdriver.

Q19. What is the Cloud Service Lifecycle?

A: 6 stages: Strategy → Design → Transition → Operation → Consumption → Retirement.

Q20. You have an app running on a single region, but users complain of latency worldwide.
What solution would you suggest?
A: Deploy the app in multiple regions, use a CDN (e.g., Azure CDN, CloudFront), and configure a
global load balancer with cross-region failover.

Q21. Your app needs to process millions of IoT messages per second. Which service would you
use?
A:

• Azure: Service Bus or Event Hub.

• AWS: Kinesis or SQS.

• GCP: Pub/Sub.

Q22. How would you explain SaaS vs PaaS to a non-technical manager?

A:
 • SaaS (Software as a Service): “Ready-made software you just use” (e.g., Gmail, Office
365).

• PaaS (Platform as a Service): “A platform where you build your own apps without
worrying about servers” (e.g., Azure App Service, Google App Engine).

Scenario-Based Cloud Computing Questions

Q1. Your e-commerce website experiences sudden spikes in traffic during festival sales. How
would you design the system on the cloud to handle this?

A:

• Use Auto-scaling (AWS Auto Scaling, Azure VM Scale Sets, GCP Instance Groups) to
add/remove servers dynamically.

• Place a Load Balancer (AWS ELB, Azure Load Balancer, GCP Load Balancer) to distribute
traffic.

• Store static content (images, CSS, videos) in a CDN (CloudFront, Azure CDN).

• Use a NoSQL database (DynamoDB, Cosmos DB, Firestore) with auto-scaling for fast
reads/writes.

Q2. Your application is running in one region. Users from other continents report high latency.
What would you do?

A:

• Deploy the application in multiple regions for proximity to users.

• Use a Global Load Balancer (e.g., Azure Traffic Manager, AWS Route 53, GCP Global LB)
to route users to the nearest region.

• Use CDN caching for static content.

• Implement database replication across regions for consistency.

Q3. A financial services company must store customer payment data on the cloud while
meeting PCI DSS compliance. What measures would you take?

A:
 • Use a PCI DSS certified cloud provider (AWS, Azure, GCP).

• Encrypt data at rest (KMS, Azure Key Vault, GCP KMS) and in transit (TLS/SSL).

• Implement Identity and Access Management (IAM) with least privilege.

• Enable auditing and logging (CloudTrail, Azure Monitor, GCP Audit Logs).

• Use tokenization or anonymization for sensitive card data.

Q4. Your startup wants to develop a web app quickly without worrying about infrastructure
management. Which cloud model would you recommend?

A:

• PaaS (Platform as a Service) → e.g., Azure App Service, Google App Engine, AWS Elastic
Beanstalk.

• Provides auto-scaling, built-in security, CI/CD integration.

• Saves time since no need to manage servers or OS.

Q5. Your IoT system collects millions of sensor data points per second. How will you design a
cloud solution?

A:

• Use message ingestion services like:

o AWS Kinesis, Azure Event Hub, GCP Pub/Sub.

• Process data in real-time with:

o AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Google Dataflow.

• Store processed data in NoSQL DB (DynamoDB, Cosmos DB, Firestore).

• Use dashboards (Power BI, Google Data Studio, AWS QuickSight) for analytics.

Q6. Your company has on-premises applications but wants to move some workloads to the
cloud while keeping critical apps in-house. What deployment model fits best?

A:
 • Hybrid Cloud.

• Keep sensitive workloads on Private Cloud/On-premises (VMware, OpenStack).

• Move scalable, less-sensitive workloads to Public Cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP).

• Connect both via VPN or ExpressRoute/Direct Connect.

Q7. An application must be “always available” (24/7 uptime). How would you ensure high
availability in the cloud?

A:

• Deploy in multiple availability zones (AZs) within a region.

• Add multi-region replication with automatic failover.

• Use load balancing across servers.

• Implement automated backups and disaster recovery (DR) strategy.

• Monitor health with CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, GCP Operations Suite.