CompTIA Cloud+ Study Guide

Exam CV0-003

Ben Piper

• Publisher: Sybex
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781119810957
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Certification Guides in Computer Science
• Index: Computer Science

In the newly revised Third Edition of CompTIA Cloud+ Study Guide: Exam CVO-003, expert IT Ben Piper delivers an industry leading resource for anyone preparing for the CompTIA Cloud+ certification and a career in cloud services. The book introduces candidates to the skills and the competencies critical for success in the field and on the exam.

The book breaks down challenging cloud management concepts into intuitive and manageable topics, including cloud architecture and design, cloud security, deployment, operations and support, and cloud troubleshooting. It also offers practical study features, like Exam Essentials and challenging chapter review questions.

Written in a concise and straightforward style that will be immediately familiar to the hundreds of thousands of readers who have successfully use other CompTIA study guides to further their careers in IT, the book offers:

• Efficient and effective training for a powerful certification that opens new and lucrative career opportunities
• Fully updated coverage for the new Cloud+ CV0-003 Exam that includes the latest in cloud architecture and design
• Access to the Sybex online learning center, with chapter review questions, full-length practice exams, hundreds of electronic flashcards, and a glossary of key terms

Perfect for everyone preparing for the CompTIA Cloud+ Exam CV0-003 certification, this book is an ideal resource for current and aspiring cloud services professionals seeking an efficient and up-to-date resource that will dramatically improve their ability to maintain, secure, and optimize cloud environments.

Chapter 1
Introducing Cloud Computing Configurations and Deployments

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THE FOLLOWING COMPTIA CLOUD+ EXAM OBJECTIVES ARE COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER:

• 1.1 Compare and contrast the different types of cloud models.
  • Deployment models
    • Public
    • Private
    • Hybrid
    • Community
    • Cloud within a cloud
    • Multicloud
    • Multitenancy
  • Service models
    • Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
    • Platform as a service (PaaS)
    • Software as a service (SaaS)
  • Advanced cloud services
    • Internet of Things (IoT)
    • Serverless
    • Machine learning/Artificial intelligence (AI)
  • Shared responsibility model
• 1.3 Explain the importance of high availability and scaling in cloud environments.
  • Hypervisors
    • Affinity
    • Anti-affinity
  • Regions and zones
  • High availability of network functions
    • Switches
    • Routers
    • Load balancers
    • Firewalls
  • Scalability
    • Auto-scaling
• 1.4 Given a scenario, analyze the solution design in support of the business requirements.
  • Environments
    • Development
    • Quality assurance (QA)
    • Staging
    • Production
  • Testing techniques
    • Vulnerability testing
    • Penetration testing
    • Performance testing
    • Regression testing
    • Functional testing
    • Usability testing
• 3.1 Given a scenario, integrate components into a cloud solution.
  • Application
    • Serverless
• 4.1 Given a scenario, configure logging, monitoring, and alerting to maintain operational status.
  • Monitoring
    • Baselines
    • Thresholds
• 4.3 Given a scenario, optimize cloud environments.
  • Placement
    • Geographical
    • Cluster placement
    • Redundancy
    • Colocation
• 4.4 Given a scenario, apply proper automation and orchestration techniques.
  • Automation activities
    • Routine operations
    • Updates
    • Scaling

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Introducing Cloud Computing

You'll begin your CompTIA Cloud+ (CV0-003) certification exam journey with a general overview of cloud computing. With a strong understanding of cloud terminology and architectures, you'll better understand the details of the cloud, which in turn means that you'll be better prepared for the Cloud+ exam and be effective when planning, deploying, and supporting cloud environments.

Let's start by briefly looking at where cloud sits in the broader scope of the IT world. Before cloud computing, organizations had to acquire the IT infrastructure needed to run their applications. Such infrastructure included servers, storage arrays, and networking equipment like routers and firewalls.

Options for where to locate this infrastructure were limited. An organization with an ample budget might build an expensive data center consisting of the following:

• Racks to hold servers and networking equipment
• Redundant power sources and backup batteries or generators
• Massive cooling and ventilation systems to keep the equipment from overheating
• Network connectivity within the data center and to outside networks such as the Internet

Organizations that are less fiscally blessed might rent physical space from a colocation (colo) facility, which is just a data center that leases rack space to the general public. Because colo customers lease only as much space as they need—be it a few rack units, an entire rack, or even multiple racks—this option is much cheaper than building and maintaining a data center from scratch. Customer organizations just have to deal with their own IT equipment and software. To put it in marketing terms, think of a colocation facility as “data center as a service.”

Cloud computing takes the concept of a colocation facility and abstracts it even further. Instead of acquiring your own IT equipment and leasing space for it from a colo, an organization can simply use a cloud service provider. In addition to providing and managing the data center infrastructure, a cloud service provider (or just provider for short) also handles the IT hardware infrastructure—namely servers, storage, and networking. The consumer of the cloud services pays fees to use the provider's equipment, and such fees are typically based on usage and billed monthly. In this chapter, we'll dive further into the details of how cloud computing works and how an organization might use the cloud instead of—or in addition to—a traditional data center or colo model.

Related to the data center versus cloud distinction, there are two terms that you need to know. On-premises (on-prem) hosting refers to an organization hosting its own hardware, be it in a data center or a colo. In contrast, cloud computing is an example of off-premises (off-prem) hosting, as the hardware resources are not controlled by the organization that uses them. To make this distinction easy to remember, just equate on-prem with data center and off-prem with cloud.

This book will reference the National Institute of Standards (NIST) SP 800-145 publication ( https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-145 ) as the main source of cloud computing definitions. NIST defines cloud computing as follows:

… a model for enabling 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.

Pay close attention to that last sentence. The reference to “minimal management effort or service provider interaction” is code for automation. Unlike a traditional data center or colocation facility, using the cloud doesn't require someone to physically go to a facility to install servers or plug in cables. There's no need for “remote hands” because cloud providers offer self-service management consoles that do the provisioning for you. When you think about it, cloud providers are really just providing automation-powered managed services for nearly every conceivable IT need.

In this study guide, you'll take a close look at all aspects of cloud computing as you progress on your journey to obtaining the Cloud+ certification. As an analogy to cloud computing, think of the services you get in your home through utilities, such as electricity and water services. You are probably not involved in the details of how these services are created and delivered; you turn the water faucet on and off, and pay only for what you use. Cloud computing follows the same principle, albeit appl...