IaaS Practice Exam

About IaaS
Infrastructure as a service are online services that provide high-level APIs used to dereference various low-level details of underlying network infrastructure like physical computing resources, location, data partitioning, scaling, security, backup etc.  

Typically IaaS involves the use of a cloud orchestration technology like OpenStack, Apache CloudStack or OpenNebula. This manages the creation of a virtual machine and decides on which hypervisor (i.e. physical host) to start it, enables VM migration features between hosts, allocates storage volumes and attaches them to VMs, tracks usage information for billing and more.

An alternative to hypervisors are Linux containers, which run in isolated partitions of a single Linux kernel running directly on the physical hardware. Linux cgroups and namespaces are the underlying Linux kernel technologies used to isolate, secure and manage the containers. Containerisation offers higher performance than virtualization, because there is no hypervisor overhead.

IaaS clouds often offer additional resources such as a virtual-machine disk-image library, raw block storage, file or object storage, firewalls, load balancers, IP addresses, virtual local area networks (VLANs), and software bundles.

Why is IaaS important?
IaaS is advantageous to companies in scenarios where scalability and quick provisioning are key. IaaS can also be beneficial to companies with steady application workloads that simply want to offload some of the routine operations and maintenance involved in managing infrastructure.

Other advantages may include the following:
•    Pay for What You Use: Fees are computed via usage-based metrics
•    Reduce Capital Expenditures: IaaS is typically a monthly operational expense
•    Dynamically Scale: Rapidly add capacity in peak times and scale down as needed
•    Increase Security: IaaS providers invest heavily in security technology and expertise
•    Future-Proof: Access to state-of-the-art data center, hardware and operating systems
•    Self-Service Provisioning: Access via simple internet connection
•    Reallocate IT Resources: Free up IT staff for higher value projects
•    Reduce Downtime: IaaS enables instant recovery from outages
•    Boost Speed: Developers can begin projects once IaaS machines are provisioned
•    Enable Innovation: Add new capabilities and leverage APIs
•    Level the Playing Field: SMBs can compete with much larger firms


Who should take the IaaS Exam?
•    IT professionals
•    Anyone who wants to assess their cloud computing skills
•    IT infrastructure managers and senior executives
•    IT consultants
•    Any professional with skills and knowledge on cloud computing
•    Anyone interested in IaaS or cloud computing

Knowledge and Skills required for the IaaS Practice Exam

Good skills in cloud health monitoring, capacity planning and consumption trend analysis a well as cost optimization techniques is needed to succeed in IaaS.

IaaS Practice Exam Objectives

IaaS exam focuses on assessing your skills and knowledge in technical and managerial aspects of IaaS including virtualization, strategy, governance and security.

IaaS Practice Exam Pre-requisite

There are no prerequisites for the IaaS exam. .

IaaS Certification Course Outline

1. Cloud Computing Introduction
1.1 Evolution of cloud and types
1.2 Cloud service models (IaaS, PaaS, etc.)
1.3 Cloud Characteristics

2. Value Proposition
2.1 Cloud economics
2.2 Cost Matrix, SLA and ROI

3. Strategy
3.1 Strategy development
3.2 Assessment
3.3 Capacity Planning and base-lining

4. Virtualization
4.1 Virtualization Technologies and hypervisors
4.2 Open source and other virtualization offerings

5. Vendor Offerings
5.1 Google Apps and app engine
5.2 Amazon Elastic compute, storage and database services
5.3 Salesforce Force platform
5.4 Windows Azure and windows live

6. Management
6.1 Provisioning and Scalability
6.2 Costing Models
6.3 Cloud Management products and emerging standards

7. Governance and Security
7.1 Threats and Security Risks
7.2 Identity Management
7.3 Applying policies

Exam Format and Information
Certification name – IaaS Certification
Exam duration – 60 minutes
Exam type - Multiple Choice Questions
Eligibility / pre-requisite - None
Exam language - English
Exam format - Online
Passing score - 25
Exam Fees  - INR 1199