Cloud Computing Study Notes

Auto-Scaling Basics

Learn the difference between horizontal and vertical auto-scaling and how scaling policies use metrics like CPU utilization to trigger scaling actions.

Caching Strategies

Compare cache-aside, write-through, and write-behind caching patterns and their consistency and latency tradeoffs.

CI/CD in the Cloud

Understand how cloud-native continuous integration and delivery pipelines automate building, testing, and deploying applications.

Cloud Computing Benefits and Challenges

Concrete benefits of cloud computing like elasticity and pay-as-you-go, weighed against real challenges like vendor lock-in and cost sprawl.

Common Cloud Computing Interview Questions

The most frequently asked cloud computing interview questions with clear, technically accurate answers.

Cloud Computing Quick Reference

A condensed cheat sheet of the core cloud computing facts, terms, and definitions for last-minute review.

Cloud Deployment Models

The differences between public, private, hybrid, and community cloud, and the cost, control, and compliance tradeoffs of each.

Cloud Migration Strategies

Learn the '6 Rs' framework for migrating workloads to the cloud: Rehost, Replatform, Repurchase, Refactor, Retire, and Retain.

Cloud Networking Basics

Learn the core building blocks that connect and isolate resources in the cloud: VPCs, subnets, route tables, and gateways.

Cloud Regions and Availability Zones

Understand how cloud providers organize infrastructure into regions and independently-failing availability zones for fault tolerance.

Cloud Security Fundamentals

Learn the core principles of securing cloud environments, including the shared responsibility model and defense-in-depth.

Cloud Service Models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)

How IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS differ in what the provider manages versus what the customer manages.

Cloud Storage Classes

Learn how hot, cool, and cold/archive storage tiers trade off cost against retrieval latency for different access patterns.

Common Cloud Pitfalls

The recurring mistakes teams make when adopting the cloud, and how to recognize and avoid each one.

Compliance and Governance

Get a conceptual overview of common compliance frameworks like SOC 2, GDPR, and HIPAA in the cloud.

Container Orchestration Basics

Understand what container orchestrators like Kubernetes do — scheduling, self-healing, scaling, and service discovery — and core concepts like Pods, Deployment…

Containers vs Virtual Machines

Compare how containers share the host OS kernel versus how VMs each run a full guest OS, and when to choose one over the other.

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)

Learn how CDNs cache content at distributed edge locations to cut latency, and how cache hits and misses work.

Cost Optimization Basics

Learn concrete cloud cost-optimization levers such as right-sizing, reserved and spot instances, storage tiering, and auto-scaling.

Data Backup and Disaster Recovery

Understand RPO and RTO and compare disaster recovery strategy tiers from backup-and-restore to multi-site active-active.

Database Replication and Sharding

Learn the difference between replicating data for availability and sharding data for write scalability.

DNS and Cloud Networking

Understand how cloud DNS services resolve domain names and support advanced routing policies like latency-based and geolocation routing.

Encryption in the Cloud

Learn how encryption at rest, encryption in transit, and key management protect cloud data.

Event-Driven Architecture

Understand how producers, consumers, and a message queue or event bus enable asynchronous, decoupled communication instead of synchronous request-response.