Cloud Fundamentals Security & Operations
At a high level, what is container orchestration for, and why is it valuable in the cloud?
Compare and contrast Containers and Virtual Machines (VMs) at a conceptual level. Why are containers considered more 'cloud-native'?
Explain the concept of 'Storage Tiering' (Hot vs. Cold vs. Archive), and how does it help in cost optimization?
Explain the difference between Encryption at Rest and Encryption in Transit. Who typically manages the keys in a managed cloud service?
Explain the difference between Object Storage, Block Storage, and File Storage. When would you use each?
In Identity and Access Management, what is the difference between authentication and authorization?
What are 'The Nines' in an SLA (e.g., 99.9% vs 99.99%), and how does increasing the number of nines impact the cost and complexity of your architecture?
What are compliance frameworks like GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC 2, and why do they matter when choosing a cloud provider?
What is 'Immutable Infrastructure,' and how does it differ from traditional server maintenance ('Pets vs. Cattle')?
What is 'Infrastructure as Code' (IaC) and why is it preferred over manual configuration in the cloud?
What is 'Zero Trust' architecture and how does it differ from traditional perimeter-based security?
What is key management in the cloud, and what are the trade-offs between provider-managed keys and customer-managed keys?
What is observability in a cloud context, and how do logs, metrics, and traces differ?
What is the 'Principle of Least Privilege' (PoLP) and how is it applied to Identity and Access Management (IAM)?
What is the difference between 'Durability' and 'Availability' in cloud storage?
What is the difference between an SLA, an SLO, and an SLI?
What is the difference between Data Residency and Data Sovereignty, and why does a developer need to care about which Region their data is stored in?
Cloud Fundamentals
Can you describe the historical evolution of cloud computing, from grid/utility computing and virtualization to modern cloud?
What are the five essential characteristics of cloud computing according to NIST?
What are the key trade-offs between running workloads on-premises versus in the public cloud?
What does 'XaaS' (Anything-as-a-Service) mean, and can you give examples beyond IaaS/PaaS/SaaS?
What does it mean for an application to be 'Cloud-Native'?
What is 'resource pooling' and how does it enable the economies of scale that cloud providers offer?
What is a hypervisor, and what is the difference between Type 1 (bare-metal) and Type 2 (hosted) hypervisors?
What is cloud computing, and what are the main benefits and drawbacks of adopting it?
What is the difference between CapEx and OpEx, and how does moving to the cloud shift a company's financial model?
High Availability & Disaster Recovery
Explain RTO and RPO. How do these metrics influence your Disaster Recovery strategy?
Explain the difference between a Cloud Region and an Availability Zone, and how do you use them to design for High Availability?
How does a Load Balancer contribute to high availability versus just performance?
What are common disaster recovery strategies (backup-and-restore, pilot light, warm standby, active-active), and how do they trade cost against RTO/RPO?
What is the difference between High Availability and Fault Tolerance, and how do Regions and Availability Zones help achieve these?
Migration & Vendor Strategy
Explain the '6 Rs' of cloud migration. When would you recommend a 'Lift and Shift' (Rehost) over a full Refactor?
Explain the difference between Hybrid Cloud and Multi-Cloud. Why might a company choose a multi-cloud strategy despite the increased complexity?
What is 'Vendor Lock-in', and what architectural patterns can help mitigate it?
What is the difference between a 'Cloud-Native' and a 'Cloud-Agnostic' architecture? What are the risks of vendor lock-in?
When would a company choose a Hybrid Cloud deployment over a pure Public Cloud strategy?
Multi Tenancy & Shared Responsibility
Explain the 'Shared Responsibility Model.' Who is responsible for what in an IaaS vs. a SaaS model?
What is 'Multi-tenancy' in a cloud environment, and what are the potential security risks associated with it?
What is Multi-tenancy, and what are the risks of 'noisy neighbors' in a public cloud environment?
Cloud Native Architecture
Explain the 'Twelve-Factor App' methodology at a high level. Why is it relevant to the cloud?
Explain the difference between a Stateless and a Stateful application. Why does the cloud favor statelessness for the application tier?
What are 'Sticky Sessions' and why are they generally discouraged in cloud-native architectures?
What does it mean to 'Design for Failure' in the cloud? Give an example of a common cloud failure and how you would mitigate it conceptually.
What is edge computing (and fog computing), and how does it differ from centralized cloud computing?
What is the role of an API Gateway in a cloud-based microservices architecture?
Why is 'Event-Driven Architecture' often paired with serverless functions?
Scalability & Elasticity
Explain the concept of 'Cloud Bursting' and a scenario where it would be beneficial.
Explain the difference between Horizontal and Vertical scaling. Which one is generally preferred in a cloud-native environment and why?
What is auto-scaling, and how does it differ from simply provisioning for peak load?
What is the conceptual difference between Scalability and Elasticity? Can a system be scalable but not elastic?
Cost Management & Optimization
Explain the concept of 'Right-sizing'. How do you identify if a cloud resource is over-provisioned?
Explain the concept of 'Total Cost of Ownership' (TCO) in the cloud. Why might a cloud bill be higher than the cost of the physical servers it replaced?
What are 'Egress Costs,' and why are they often referred to as a 'hidden' cloud cost? How can a developer architect a system to minimize them?
What are 'Spot' or 'Preemptible' instances, and what is the trade-off for their lower cost?
What does 'pay-as-you-go' or 'measured service' mean, and how does metered billing change how you architect systems?
What is FinOps, and what do 'showback' and 'chargeback' mean in cloud cost management?
What is the difference between On-Demand, Reserved (Committed Use), and Spot (Preemptible) pricing models, and when is it risky to use Spot instances?
Networking & Content Delivery
Explain the concept of a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Why is it important for a developer to understand subnets and security groups even if they don't manage the infra?
How does a Content Delivery Network (CDN) improve application performance?
What is a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and how does it relate to Edge Computing?
What is the purpose of a VPN or Direct Connect link in a hybrid cloud setup?
What role does DNS play in cloud architectures, and how is it used for failover and traffic routing?
Service & Deployment Models
Explain the differences between IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. When would you choose one over the others?
What are managed (PaaS) services, and what are the trade-offs of using them versus self-managing the same capability?
What is a community cloud, and in what situations would organizations use one?
What is FaaS (Function-as-a-Service) and how does it differ from traditional PaaS?
What is the difference between Public, Private, and Hybrid cloud deployment models? In what scenario would a company choose a Private cloud over a Public one?
Serverless Computing
What is a 'Cold Start' in serverless computing, and what architectural patterns can mitigate its impact?
What is Serverless (FaaS) and what are the primary trade-offs, such as cold starts and execution limits, compared to long-running containers?