Why cloud over on-premises in AWS - Challenge Your Understanding

Challenge - 5 Problems

🧠 Conceptual

intermediate

Benefits of Cloud vs On-Premises: Cost

Which of the following is a key cost advantage of using cloud services over on-premises infrastructure?

A You pay only for what you use, avoiding upfront hardware costs

B You must buy all hardware upfront, increasing capital expenses

C You need to hire more staff to maintain cloud servers

D Cloud services require long-term contracts with fixed costs

💡 Hint

Think about how cloud billing works compared to buying physical servers.

Cloud services use a pay-as-you-go model, so you avoid large upfront costs typical of on-premises setups.

❓ Architecture

intermediate

Scalability Differences: Cloud vs On-Premises

Which option best describes how cloud infrastructure handles scaling compared to on-premises?

A Cloud scaling is fixed and cannot be adjusted after setup

B On-premises can scale instantly by adding virtual machines; cloud requires weeks to add hardware

C Both cloud and on-premises require manual hardware installation to scale

D Cloud can quickly add or remove resources on demand; on-premises scaling is slower and limited

💡 Hint

Consider how cloud providers manage resources behind the scenes.

Cloud providers offer elastic scaling, allowing resources to be adjusted quickly without physical hardware changes.

❓ security

advanced

Security Responsibility Model

In the cloud shared responsibility model, which security aspect is the cloud provider responsible for?

A Managing customer data encryption keys by default

B Configuring user access permissions within applications

C Physical security of data centers and hardware maintenance

D Monitoring user activity logs for suspicious behavior

💡 Hint

Think about what the cloud provider controls versus what the customer controls.

The cloud provider secures the physical infrastructure, while customers manage access and data security configurations.

✅ Best Practice

advanced

Disaster Recovery in Cloud vs On-Premises

Which cloud feature best improves disaster recovery compared to traditional on-premises setups?

A Automated backups across multiple geographic regions

B Manual tape backups stored onsite

C Single data center with redundant power supplies

D Physical copies of data stored in locked cabinets

💡 Hint

Consider how cloud providers handle data durability and availability.

Cloud providers replicate data automatically across regions, enabling fast recovery from failures.

❓ service_behavior

expert

Cloud Elasticity Impact on Application Performance

An application hosted on cloud infrastructure experiences sudden traffic spikes. Which cloud behavior best explains how the application maintains performance?

A Cloud limits traffic to prevent overload by rejecting new requests

B Cloud automatically adds more compute instances to handle increased load

C Cloud requires manual intervention to add resources during traffic spikes

D Cloud shuts down unused instances to save costs during spikes

💡 Hint

Think about how cloud elasticity helps applications during high demand.

Cloud elasticity allows automatic scaling of resources to maintain performance during traffic spikes.