This set covers the foundations of cloud computing: the NIST SP 800-145 definition, its five essential characteristics, the business benefits that drive adoption and the older paradigms of cluster, grid and utility computing that led to the modern cloud. It is useful for university semester exams, UGC NET, GATE-style conceptual rounds and placement interviews where definitions and simple cost reasoning are tested.
How to practise: read each question and tap the option you think is correct. You will see right away whether you got it, along with a short explanation, and your score is tracked at the bottom of the screen. This set has 18 questions.
Topics covered in this set
- NIST SP 800-145 definition
- Five essential characteristics
- Multi-tenancy and resource pooling
- CapEx vs OpEx and economies of scale
- Cluster, grid and utility computing
- Risks such as vendor lock-in
Cloud Computing MCQs with answers and explanations
Q1. According to NIST SP 800-145, how many essential characteristics define cloud computing?
a) 3
b) 4
c) 5
d) 7
Q2. Which of the following is NOT one of the NIST essential characteristics of cloud computing?
a) Guaranteed data locality on a specific server
b) Rapid elasticity
c) Measured service
d) Resource pooling
Q3. The characteristic under which resource usage is monitored, controlled and reported, giving transparency to both provider and consumer, is called
a) Resource pooling
b) Measured service
c) Broad network access
d) On-demand self-service
Q4. A developer creates a new virtual server through a web console at midnight without contacting anyone at the provider. Which characteristic does this illustrate?
a) Rapid elasticity
b) Resource pooling
c) Broad network access
d) On-demand self-service
Q5. Under resource pooling, at what level can a consumer typically specify the location of resources?
a) The exact physical server
b) A specific rack and disk
c) A higher level of abstraction such as country, region or data centre
d) No location information of any kind
Q6. Who is credited with proposing, in the early 1960s, that computation might one day be organised as a public utility?
a) John McCarthy
b) Alan Turing
c) Tim Berners-Lee
d) Ian Foster
Q7. Which paradigm federates geographically distributed, heterogeneous resources owned by different organisations into virtual organisations to solve large problems?
a) Cluster computing
b) Grid computing
c) Mainframe time-sharing
d) Edge caching
Q8. Compared with a computational grid, a typical cluster consists of
a) Loosely coupled heterogeneous nodes spread across organisations
b) Homogeneous nodes connected by a high-speed LAN under a single administrative domain
c) Only virtual machines rented from a public provider
d) Mobile devices connected over cellular networks
Q9. A startup rents servers by the hour instead of buying hardware upfront. This financial benefit is best described as
a) Converting capital expenditure into operational expenditure
b) Converting operational expenditure into capital expenditure
c) Eliminating all IT costs
d) Guaranteeing lower cost at every scale and usage pattern
Q10. NIST states that, under rapid elasticity, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to the consumer to be
a) Fixed at the time of signing the contract
b) Limited to the size of one physical host
c) Unlimited and obtainable in any quantity at any time
d) Available only during off-peak hours
Q11. NIST SP 800-145 defines how many service models and deployment models, respectively?
a) 3 and 3
b) 4 and 3
c) 3 and 4
d) 4 and 4
Q12. An employee opens the same cloud-hosted CRM from a laptop, a tablet and a phone using standard web protocols. Which characteristic is demonstrated?
a) Measured service
b) Rapid elasticity
c) Resource pooling
d) Broad network access
Q13. A workload needs 10 servers for 2 hours each day and only 2 servers for the remaining 22 hours. If an on-premise setup keeps 10 servers running 24 hours a day, roughly what fraction of that capacity is actually used?
a) About 13%
b) About 50%
c) About 64%
d) About 27%
Q14. Serving many customers from shared infrastructure or a single application instance while keeping each customer's data logically isolated is called
a) Multi-tenancy
b) Multi-homing
c) Multiprogramming
d) Multicasting
Q15. In which year did Amazon Web Services publicly launch S3 and EC2, commonly regarded as the start of commercial public IaaS?
a) 1999
b) 2002
c) 2006
d) 2011
Q16. Which of these is generally considered a risk or drawback of adopting public cloud services?
a) Elastic scaling
b) Pay-as-you-go billing
c) Global reach
d) Vendor lock-in
Q17. The core idea that cloud billing borrows from utility computing is
a) Buying perpetual software licences
b) Paying only for metered consumption, as with electricity
c) Owning dedicated hardware for each application
d) Free unlimited usage after a one-time fee
Q18. Large cloud providers can offer lower unit costs than most individual enterprises mainly because of
a) Running smaller data centres
b) Avoiding virtualisation
c) Dedicating one physical server per customer
d) Economies of scale in hardware purchasing, power and operations
Quick revision notes
- NIST SP 800-145: 5 essential characteristics, 3 service models, 4 deployment models.
- Characteristics: on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, measured service.
- Resource pooling = multi-tenancy + location independence at a high level (region/data centre).
- Cluster: homogeneous, tightly coupled, one admin domain. Grid: heterogeneous, loosely coupled, many organisations.
- Utility computing (McCarthy, 1961): pay for metered consumption like electricity.
- Utilisation = used capacity / provisioned capacity; peak provisioning wastes idle capacity.
- Key benefits: CapEx to OpEx, elasticity, global reach, speed; key risks: lock-in, compliance, outages.
Frequently asked questions
What is the NIST definition of cloud computing?
NIST defines cloud computing as a model for ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or provider interaction. It is described through five characteristics, three service models and four deployment models.
What is the difference between grid computing and cloud computing?
Grid computing pools resources from many organisations, mainly for large scientific batch jobs, often without a commercial billing model. Cloud computing is usually run by a single provider, uses virtualisation for isolation and offers on-demand, metered services to many tenants.
Is rapid elasticity the same as scalability?
Scalability is the ability to handle more load by adding resources. Rapid elasticity adds the idea of quickly and often automatically provisioning and releasing resources in both directions to closely match demand.
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