Module 3: Modern Data Center Environment (Compute + Applications)

Question 1

What is a compute system?

Answer 1

device that runs business applications

Question 2

What are the physical components of a compute system?

Answer 2

memory
internal storage
processors
I/O devices

Question 3

What are the logical components of a compute system?

Answer 3

OS
device drivers
logical volume manager
file system

Question 4

What are modern apps deployed on?

Answer 4

compute clusters

Question 5

What is a compute cluster?

Answer 5

group of two or more compute systems that function together - logically viewed as single system

Question 6

What are the benefits of a compute cluster?

Answer 6

high availability + balancing workloads

Question 7

What are the types of compute systems?

Answer 7

Tower
Rack
Blade

Question 8

What are the characteristics of a tower system?

Answer 8

similar to desktop cabinet - typically have individual endpoints and take up a lot of floor space/complex cables

Question 9

What are the characteristics of a rack system?

Answer 9

multiple enclosures in a single rack - stacked vertically with simple cabling and reduced floor space

Question 10

What are the characteristics of a blade system?

Answer 10

several blade servers installed in a single chassis - also called modular servers - minimizes floor space and increases system density/scalability - more energy efficient

Question 11

What is a blade server?

Answer 11

printed circuit board with core processing parts - memory, network controller, storage drive, IO card/ports, memory

Question 12

What is virtualization?

Answer 12

allows creation of virtual compute systems called VMs - achieved through a hypervisor (virtualization software)

Question 13

What is the point of a hypervisor?

Answer 13

allocates virtual hardware resources to all the VMs - enables multiple OS to run on single compute system by abstracting physical resources from the OS/apps

Question 14

What is a VM?

Answer 14

a logical entity that appears to OS as a single physical compute system with its own hardware components - all VMs share same underlying physical hardware of server

Question 15

What are the characteristics of VM?

Answer 15

VMs are all isolated from each other - apps running on different VMs don’t clash w/ each other - also helps w/ fault tolerance

Question 16

What is a virtual machine manager (VMM)

Answer 16

abstracts physical hardware and presents it to the VM - each VM is assigned a VMM

Question 17

What is a compute system that has a hypervisor running on it called?

Answer 17

a host machine

Question 18

What is a VM running on a host machine called?

Answer 18

a guest machine

Question 19

What is the OS installed on a guest machine called?

Answer 19

a guest OS

Question 20

What is a configuration file in the context of a VM?

Answer 20

store the VMs configuration data (VM name, location, CPU size, etc.)

Question 21

What is a virtual disk file in the context of a VM?

Answer 21

store the content of the VM’s disk drive (VM can have multiple VD files - each appears as separate disk to VM)

Question 22

What is a memory state file in the context of a VM?

Answer 22

stores the memory contents of a VM - used to resume VM in a suspended state

Question 23

What is a log file in the context of a VM?

Answer 23

used to keep record of VM’s activity - often used for troubleshooting

Question 24

What are the typical virtual components of a VM?

Answer 24

USB Controller
GPU
RAM
Storage
Peripherals
HBA
Processor

Question 25

What is containerization?

Answer 25

OS level virtualization that simplifies app deployment - requires fewer resources than VM

Question 26

What are the benefits of containerization?

Answer 26

delivers microservices with portable/isolated virtual environments for apps can run app microservices without interference bundles apps w/ software libraries they depend on which makes apps portable defines deployment standard for modern cloud apps

Question 27

What are the main characteristics of containers?

Answer 27

shared OS Small image footprint (MB) quick start times stateless easily transportable

Question 28

What are the main characteristics of VMs versus containers?

Answer 28

separate OS large image footprint (GB) full boots stateful not easily portable

Question 29

What is desktop virtualization?

Answer 29

technology that decouples OS/apps/user state from physical computer to create VDI environment to be accessed from different client devices

Question 30

What are the benefits of desktop virtualization?

Answer 30

simplified desktop infrastructure management improved data protection and compliance flexibility of access

Question 31

What is a traditional application?

Answer 31

designed for desktop first than extended to other devices - often require separate interfaces based on device types - monolithic with tightly coupled code in a single package - very manual management

Question 32

How do traditional applications scale?

Answer 32

through stateful design approach - monolithic architecture that is vertically scaled

Question 33

What are the availabilty requirements for traditional apps?

Answer 33

rely on highly available infrastructure with redundant components and automated recovery

Question 34

What are cloud native applications?

Answer 34

consist of business parts known as microservices - assembled w/ specific rules and best practices - require modern infrastructure platform

Question 35

What are the benefits of cloud native applications?

Answer 35

enable delivery of services in hours not weeks support predictive algorithms and can dynamically scale out

Question 36

What is application virtualization?

Answer 36

decouples application from underlying compute OS and hardware - enables app to be used on server without installation

Question 37

What are the benefits of application virtualization?

Answer 37

simplified app deployment and management eliminate OS modifications resolve app conflicts and compatibility issues simplified OS image management flexibility of app access