Cloud computing has become an integral part of modern technology infrastructure, revolutionizing how businesses manage and deliver services over the Internet. Cloud computing refers to the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the internet ("the cloud") to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale.
Here, in this interview preparation series, we provide over 40 Top Cloud Computing Interview Questions designed for individuals freshers or experienced professionals with 2, 4, and 10+ years of experience. Covering fundamental concepts, advanced topics, best practices, and real-world scenarios, this resource is your key to acing cloud computing interviews.
Join us as we explore these questions, unlocking the secrets that could land you that dream role. It can give you a competitive advantage and boost your chances of receiving a favorable response. This article provides you with the most frequently asked questions during the interview.
Cloud Computing Interview Questions
In this list interview questions of , we focus on the most common cloud computing interview questions for both beginners and experienced professionals. You'll find questions covering key topics like cloud service models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), deployment types (public, private, hybrid), and popular platforms like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
Cloud computing means storing and accessing the data and programs on remote servers that are hosted on the internet instead of the computer’s hard drive or local server. Cloud computing is also referred to as Internet-based computing, it is a technology where the resource is provided as a service through the Internet to the user. The data that is stored can be files, images, documents, or any other storable document.
Q2. What are Cloud Delivery Models?
A cloud delivery model is a specific, pre-packaged set of IT resources provided by a cloud provider. The most popular cloud delivery models that have been broadly accepted and formalized are:
- Software as a service (SaaS)
- Platform as a service (PaaS)
- Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
- Anything/Everything as a Service (XaaS)
- Function as a Service (FaaS)
Each performer is an object (a person or an organization) that contributes to a transaction or method and/or performs tasks in Cloud computing. There are five major actors defined in the NIST cloud computing reference architecture:
- Cloud Provider
- Cloud Carrier
- Cloud Broker
- Cloud Auditor
- Cloud Consumer
Microservice is a small, loosely coupled distributed service. Microservice architecture evolved as a solution to the scalability, independently deployable, and innovation challenges with Monolithic architecture (Monolithic applications are typically huge – more than 100,000 lines of code). It allows you to take a large application and decompose or break it into easily manageable small components with narrowly defined responsibilities.
The architecture of cloud computing is the combination of both SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and EDA (Event Driven Architecture). Client infrastructure, application, service, runtime cloud, storage, infrastructure, management, and security are the components of cloud computing architecture. The cloud architecture is divided into 2 parts
Frontend
Frontend of the cloud architecture refers to the client side of a cloud computing system. This means it contains all the user interfaces and applications that the client uses to access the cloud computing services/resources.
Backend
Backend refers to the cloud itself which is used by the service provider. It contains the resources as well as manages the resources and provides security mechanisms.
In Cloud Computing, Cloud storage is a virtual locker where we can remotely stash any data. When we upload a file to a cloud-based server like Google Drive, OneDrive, or iCloud that file gets copied over the Internet into a data server that is cloud-based actual physical space where companies store files on multiple hard drives.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a way of delivering services and applications over the Internet. Instead of installing and maintaining software, we simply access it via the Internet, freeing ourselves from the complex software and hardware management. It removes the need to install and run applications on our computers or in the data centers eliminating the expenses of hardware and software maintenance.
Edge computing is a new computing paradigm that refers to a set of networks and devices located at or near the user. Edge processing brings data closer to where it is generated, allowing for faster and larger processing rates and volumes, resulting in more actionable answers in real-time.
| Edge Computing | Cloud Computing |
|---|
| Edge Computing is a distributed computing architecture that brings computing and data storage closer to the source of data. | Cloud Computing is a model for delivering information technology services over the internet. |
| Processing is done at the edge of the network, near the device that generates the data. | Data Analysis and Processing are done at a central location, such as a data center. |
| Edge Computing is more expensive, as specialized hardware and software may be required at the edge. | Cloud Computing is less expensive, as users only pay for the resources they use. |
| Scalability for Edge Computing can be more challenging, as additional computing resources may need to be added at the edge. | Easier, as users can quickly and easily scale up or down their computing resources based on their needs. |
An API Gateway is a key component in system design, particularly in microservices architectures and modern web applications. It serves as a centralized entry point for managing and routing requests from clients to the appropriate microservices or backend services within a system.
Cloud-Native can be described as an approach that builds Software Applications as Micro-services and runs as well as maintains them on a containerized platform to utilize the proper advantages of the cloud computing model., i.e., each organization will have to modernize its infrastructure, processes, and organizational structure while choosing the right cloud technologies as per their respective requirements and user’s total usage.
Q12. What is Rate Limiting?
A strategy to limit network traffic by putting a limit on how often someone can repeat an action in a certain timeframe. Rate limiting can help eliminate malicious activities and bot impacts.
Q13. What are Low-Density Data Centers?
Low-Density Data Centers are optimized to give high performance. The space constraint is being removed and there is an increased density in these data centers. One drawback it has is that with high density the heat issue also creeps in. These data centers are quite suitable for developing the cloud infrastructure.
Platform-as-an-service (PaaS) is a distributed computing model where an outsider supplier appropriates equipment and programming instruments to clients over the Internet. As a rule, these are required for application improvement. PaaS supplier has equipment and programming on its framework. Therefore, it liberates designers from introducing inside equipment and programming to create or run another application.
Cloud computing is Internet-based computing in which a shared pool of resources is available over broad network access, these resources can be provisioned or released with minimum management efforts and service-provider interaction. There are 5 types of Clouds:
- Public cloud
- Private cloud
- Hybrid cloud
- Community cloud
- Multicloud
Eucalyptus is a Linux-based open-source software architecture for cloud computing and also a storage platform that implements Infrastructure a Service (IaaS). It provides quick and efficient computing services. Eucalyptus was designed to provide services compatible with Amazon’s EC2 cloud and Simple Storage Service(S3). Eucalyptus CLIs can handle Amazon Web Services and their private instances. Clients have the independence to transfer cases from Eucalyptus to Amazon Elastic Cloud.
| Cloud | Data Center |
|---|
| Cloud is a virtual resource that helps businesses to store, organize, and operate data efficiently. | A Data Center is a physical resource that helps businesses store, organize, and operate data efficiently. |
| The scalability of the cloud required less amount of investment. | The scalability of the Data Center is huge in investment as compared to the cloud. |
| The maintenance cost is less than service providers maintain it. | The maintenance cost is high because the developers of the organization do maintenance. |
| Cloud is easy to operate and is considered a viable option. | Data Centers require experienced developers to operate and are considered not a viable option. |
Q18. What is on-demand functionality?
Cloud computing provides on-demand access to virtualized IT resources. It can be used by the subscriber. It uses a shared pool to provide configurable resources. A shared pool contains networks, servers, storage, applications, and services.
Containers as a service (CaaS) is a cloud service model that allows users to upload, edit, start, stop, rate, and otherwise manage containers, applications, and collections. It enables these processes through tool-based virtualization, a programming interface (API), or a web portal interface. CaaS helps users create rich, secure, and fragmented applications through local or cloud data centers. Containers and collections are used as a service with this model and are installed in the cloud or data centres on the site.
Q20. What are Containerized Data Centers?
A containerized server room or data center is a shipping container designed to house IT equipment such as servers, storage devices, networking gear, uninterruptible power supplies, generators, and cooling equipment. You can also deploy separate containers for power and cooling equipment alongside a containerized data center. The container usually has built-in connectivity for accessing external power, water (for cooling purposes), and data.
MCC stands for Mobile Cloud Computing which is defined as a combination of mobile computing, cloud computing, and wireless network that come up together purpose such as rich computational resources to mobile users, network operators, as well as to cloud computing providers. Mobile Cloud Computing is meant to make it possible for rich mobile applications to be executed on a different number of mobile devices. In this technology, data processing, and data storage happen outside of mobile devices.
A hypervisor is a form of virtualization software used in Cloud hosting to divide and allocate the resources on various pieces of hardware. The program which provides partitioning, isolation, or abstraction is called a virtualization hypervisor. The hypervisor is a hardware virtualization technique that allows multiple guest operating systems (OS) to run on a single host system at the same time. A hypervisor is sometimes also called a virtual machine manager(VMM).
Virtualization is a technique how to separate a service from the underlying physical delivery of that service. It is the process of creating a virtual version of something like computer hardware. It was initially developed during the mainframe era. It involves using specialized software to create a virtual or software-created version of a computing resource rather than the actual version of the same resource.
| Public Cloud | Private Cloud |
|---|
| Cloud Computing infrastructure is shared with the public by service providers over the internet. It supports multiple customers i.e, enterprises. | Cloud Computing infrastructure is shared with private organizations by service providers over the internet. It supports one enterprise. |
| Multi-Tenancy i.e, Data of many enterprises are stored in a shared environment but are isolated. Data is shared as per rule, permission, and security. | Single Tenancy i.e, Data of a single enterprise is stored. |
| Cloud service provider provides all the possible services and hardware as the user-base is the world. Different people and organizations may need different services and hardware. Services provided must be versatile. | Specific services and hardware as per the need of the enterprise are available in a private cloud. |
| It is hosted at the Service Provider site. | It is hosted at the Service Provider site or enterprise. |
Multitenancy is a type of software architecture where a single software instance can serve multiple distinct user groups. It means that multiple customers of cloud vendor are using the same computing resources. As they are sharing the same computing resources but the data of each Cloud customer is kept totally separate and secure. It is very important concept of Cloud Computing.
Enterprise owning data centre provide resources requested by customers as per their need. Data centers have all resources and on user request, particular amount of CPU, RAM, NIC and storage with preferred OS is provided to users. This concept of virtualization in which services are requested and provided over Internet is called Server Virtualization. To implement Server Virtualization, hypervisor is installed on server which manages and allocates host hardware requirements to each virtual machine.
In cloud computing, resilience refers to a cloud system’s capacity to bounce back from setbacks and carry on operating normally. Hardware malfunctions, software flaws, and natural disasters are just a few examples of the different failures that a resilient cloud system can survive and recover from with little to no service interruption.
Different components of cloud infrastructure supports the computing requirements of a cloud computing model. Cloud infrastructure has number of key components but not limited to only server, software, network and storage devices.Various other components of cloud computing infrastructure are:
- Hypervisor
- Management Software
- Deployment Software
- Network
- Server
- Storage
IAAS: Infrastructure As A Service (IAAS) is means of delivering computing infrastructure as on-demand services.
PAAS: Platform As A Service (PAAS) is a cloud delivery model for applications composed of services managed by a third party.
SAAS: Software As A Service (SAAS) allows users to run existing online applications and it is a model software that is deployed as a hosting service.
| IAAS | PAAS | SAAS |
|---|
| IAAS gives access to the resources like virtual machines and virtual storage. | PAAS gives access to run time environment to deployment and development tools for application. | SAAS gives access to the end user. |
| It is a service model that provides virtualized computing resources over the internet. | It is a cloud computing model that delivers tools that are used for the development of applications. | It is a service model in cloud computing that hosts software to make it available to clients. |
| It requires technical knowledge. | Some knowledge is required for the basic setup. | There is no requirement about technicalities company handles everything. |
| It is popular among developers and researchers. | It is popular among developers who focus on the development of apps and scripts. | It is popular among consumers and companies, such as file sharing, email, and networking. |
There are 4 types of cloud computing security controls i.e.
- Deterrent Controls : Deterrent controls are designed to block nefarious attacks on a cloud system. These come in handy when there are insider attackers.
- Preventive Controls : Preventive controls make the system resilient to attacks by eliminating vulnerabilities in it.
- Detective Controls : It identifies and reacts to security threats and control. Some examples of detective control software are Intrusion detection software and network security monitoring tools.
- Corrective Controls : In the event of a security attack these controls are activated. They limit the damage caused by the attack.
Everything as a Service (XaaS) means anything can now be a service with the help of cloud computing and remote accessing. Where cloud computing technologies provide different kinds of services over the web networks. In Everything as a Service, various tools and technologies, and services are provided to users as a service. With XaaS, business is simplified as they have to pay for what they need. This Everything as a Service is also known as Anything as a Service.
A resource pool is a group of resources that can be assigned to users. Resources of any kind, including computation, network, and storage, can be pooled. It adds an abstraction layer that enables uniform resource use and presentation. In cloud data centers, a sizable pool of physical resources is maintained and made available to consumers as virtual services.
Cloud Elasticity:
Elasticity refers to the ability of a cloud to automatically expand or compress the infrastructural resources on a sudden up and down in the requirement so that the workload can be managed efficiently. This elasticity helps to minimize infrastructural costs.
Cloud Scalability:
Cloud scalability is used to handle the growing workload where good performance is also needed to work efficiently with software or applications. Scalability is commonly used where the persistent deployment of resources is required to handle the workload statically.
Load balancing is an essential technique used in cloud computing to optimize resource utilization and ensure that no single resource is overburdened with traffic. It is a process of distributing workloads across multiple computing resources, such as servers, virtual machines, or containers, to achieve better performance, availability, and scalability.
| Cloud Servers | Dedicated Servers |
|---|
| Cloud servers are profoundly adaptable, as per our need, can transform anything, for example, assets and space. | We can’t change the configuration in a dedicated server since we have dedicated equipment being used. |
| Cloud services are cost-effective as we pay just for the assets and resources we are utilizing and do not require any special knowledge on the server to manage the server. | In dedicated servers, we require expert knowledge and high-level resources to manage the server, thus, making it more costly. |
| The cloud provides with different utilities within less expense. | For a devoted server, we pay more as compared to the cloud server if we want to incorporate the server with some utility-based tool. |
| Cloud doesn’t provide much control to its customer, so a cloud user cannot customize the server. | The customer can customize the server according to the need as the customer has full authority over his server. |
Grid Computing can be defined as a network of computers working together to perform a task that would rather be difficult for a single machine. All machines on that network work under the same protocol to act as a virtual supercomputer. The task that they work on may include analyzing huge datasets or simulating situations that require high computing power. Computers on the network contribute resources like processing power and storage capacity to the network.
A Hypervisor is a layer of software that enables virtualization by creating and managing virtual machines (VMs). It acts as a bridge between the physical hardware and the virtualized environment. Each VM can run independently of one other because the hypervisor abstracts the underlying physical hardware and offers a virtual environment for each one. Hypervisor security refers to the measures taken to protect the hypervisor and the VMs it manages from potential security threats.
Cloud Networking is service or science in which company’s networking procedure is hosted on public or private cloud. Cloud Computing is source manage in which more than one computing resources share identical platform and customers are additionally enabled to get entry to these resources to specific extent. Cloud networking in similar fashion shares networking however it gives greater superior features and network features in cloud with interconnected servers set up under cyberspace.
Network Virtualization is a process of logically grouping physical networks and making them operate as single or multiple independent networks called Virtual Networks.Tools for Network Virtualization :
Physical switch OS
It is where the OS must have the functionality of network virtualization.
Hypervisor
It is which uses third-party software or built-in networking and the functionalities of network virtualization.
| Cloud Computing | Virtualization |
|---|
| Cloud computing is used to provide pools and automated resources that can be accessed on-demand. | While It is used to make various simulated environments through a physical hardware system. |
| Cloud computing setup is tedious, complicated. | While virtualization setup is simple as compared to cloud computing. |
| The total cost of cloud computing is higher than virtualization. | The total cost of virtualization is lower than Cloud Computing. |
| In cloud computing, we utilize the entire server capacity and the entire servers are consolidated. | In Virtualization, the entire servers are on-demand. |
Conclusion
As cloud computing continues to revolutionize businesses, mastering key concepts is essential for landing your dream cloud job. By understanding the different cloud service models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), security practices, and in-demand skills like serverless architecture, you'll be well-prepared to tackle common interview questions and impress potential employers. Remember, showcasing your knowledge and enthusiasm for this ever-evolving field will put you ahead of the curve.
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