MCQ Lecture questions Flashcards
Which statement best describes why “commodity hardware” is chosen for data center servers?
A. It is exclusively manufactured by a single vendor, ensuring higher consistency in performance.
B. It eliminates the need for NICs by relying on built-in wireless connectivity.
C. It is both cost-effective and readily available “off the shelf,” offering standard components that can be replaced easily.
D. It has significantly lower power consumption than enterprise-grade hardware, resulting in zero downtime. E. It cannot be used for large-scale data center deployments because of limited scalability.
Correct Answer: C
Commodity hardware is inexpensive, widely available, and easy to
replace with standard off-the-shelf components.
Other options are incorrect or misleading because:
A – Commodity hardware is not limited to a single vendor.
B – Network interface cards are still required for servers.
D – It does not inherently guarantee “significantly lower” power
consumption or zero downtime.
E – It is widely used at scale precisely due to its accessibility and
replaceability.
Which of the following statements about top-of-rack switches is most accurate?
A. They are used exclusively to route traffic between different networks in separate data centres.
B. They provide firewall functionality, replacing the need for dedicated firewalls within a rack.
C. They allow a server in a rack to connect specifically to the internet.
D. They serve as the local switching point for all servers in a rack, and connect those servers to the broader data centre network.
E. They replace routers entirely by handling inter-network routing outside the rack environment.
Correct Answer: D
The top-of-rack switch provides local connectivity for servers within the
rack and also connects them to the wider data center network.
Other options are incorrect because:
A – Top-of-rack switches are primarily for local (rack-level) connectivity, not exclusively for inter-data-centre routing.
B – They do not replace firewalls.
C – They allow both intra-rack communication and connection to external networks.
E – They do not replace routers for inter-network routing.
Which of the following statements is most accurate about the Linux kernel?
A. It provides essential services to applications by managing hardware
resources (e.g., CPU, memory, devices) through system calls.
B. It operates in user space to ensure device drivers cannot affect core system functions.
C. It is responsible for creating and managing virtual machines, bypassing
any need for a hypervisor.
D. It resides above the operating system’s graphical user interface layer to manage networking protocols.
E. It can only be compiled and distributed by the original creator, to maintain security.
Correct Answer: A
The kernel provides services by managing processes, memory, and devices, exposing this functionality through system calls.
Why others are incorrect:
B – The kernel runs in its own privileged (kernel) space, not user space.
C – Virtual machines are typically managed by a hypervisor, not directly by the kernel alone.
D – The kernel sits below the user space (including any GUIs) and handles lower-level operations like hardware interaction.
E – Linux is open-source; anyone can compile and distribute the kernel under the appropriate license.
Regarding virtualisation, which of the following is most correct?
A. A Type 2 hypervisor runs directly on physical hardware and offers the best performance for data center servers.
B. Type 1 hypervisors run on a server’s existing OS, making them easier to
install than Type 2 hypervisors.
C. Virtualisation removes the need for a physical NIC, using software-only
NICs that do not rely on hardware.
D. Virtual machines do not require an underlying hypervisor if the operating
system is Linux-based.
E. Type 1 hypervisors are also called bare-metal hypervisors and typically have lower overhead than Type 2 hypervisors
Correct Answer: E
Type 1 (bare-metal) hypervisors run directly on the host hardware; they
usually have lower overhead than Type 2 (hosted) hypervisors.
Why others are incorrect:
A – Describes a Type 1 hypervisor, not Type 2.
B – Type 1 hypervisors don’t require a host OS; Type 2 hypervisors
do.
C – Even virtual NICs ultimately map to physical NIC hardware on
the host for network connectivity.
D – All VMs need a hypervisor, regardless of OS type.
