Cloud Computing 

Candidates for this exam will be able to identify and describe end solutions that leverage cloud technologies, considerations that span across solutions and the "art of the possible" in utilizing cloud to develop solutions.

Determine if cloud solution is appropriate

1.1 Explain advantages provided by cloud to stakeholders

• Describe cloud infrastructure

• Distinguish between IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS

• Show how cloud allows building applications cheaper than with traditional

models

• Show how cloud allows building applications faster than with traditional

models

1.2 Explain cost to stakeholders

• Identify the use case (new development or transition of existing product or

service)

• Identify the resources that will be required to construct the service or

product using cloud-hosted components (include compute, data, and

network costs)

• Identify support plan that will be required to meet performance, availability,

scalability, and reliability (PASR) criteria

• Consider factors that go into return on investment

1.3 Explain performance to stakeholders

• Identify performance criteria

• Consider what solutions meet the criteria

• Assess cost and availability of technical expertise

1.4 Explain reliability to stakeholders

• Identify reliability criteria, including network speeds

• Consider what solutions meet the criteria

• Understand service-level agreement (SLA) with cloud provider

• Consider disaster-recovery and backup plans (including backup

redundancy or replication factor)

1.5 Explain availability to stakeholders

• Identify the use case (new development or transition of existing product or

service)

• Identify any upstream or downstream SLAs that will govern availability

requirements

• Establish availability metrics

• Assess the SLA offered by the cloud-hosted solution

1.6 Explain scalability to stakeholders

• Identify the use case (new development or transition of existing product or

service)

• Understand that rules can be set to adjust resources based on need

1.7 Recommend off-the-shelf (OTS) or custom solutions as needed

• Identify the use case (new development or transition of existing product or

service)

• Evaluate if existing OTS offering meets performance, availability, scalability,

and reliability needs

• Evaluate technical effort needed for custom solution

• Evaluate if custom solution can exceed OTS on PASR criteria

2. Developing cloud architecture

2.1 Choose between public, private, and hybrid cloud implementations

• Identify the security and privacy requirements for the solution (focusing on

networking options that each provides)

• Consider limits imposed by tenancy in various cloud implementations

2.2 Draw an architectural diagram (show data flows)

• Break down the proposed solution into compute, data, and networking

components

• Produce logical groupings for the components

• Mark data flows between components (including the protocol)

• Identify system and component boundaries (including responsibility

model)

2.3 Define requirements

• Decide whether to virtualize server, network, storage, and desktop

• Be aware of design patterns like microservices and serverless

• Consider networking infrastructure, storage devices, memory, and end-user

devices required

2.4 Identify how services communicate through application

programming interfaces (APIs)

• Identifying services with which the application needs to integrate

• Interact using an API

2.5 Create virtual machines

• Determine the operating system for the virtual machines

• Choose the appropriate size for the virtual machines

• Decide on geographic setting for the virtual machines (latency, legal

requirements)

• Configure options (e.g., time limitations, scaling, backups) for the virtual

machines

2.6 Identify data storage requirements

• Distinguish between structured and unstructured data

• Determine amount of storage needed

• Consider location of storage

• Consider storage security

3. Implementing the cloud development life cycle

3.1 Create content in virtual environments

• Understand that a source-code management system needs to be set up

• Install and configure the prerequisite packages in the virtual environment

• Save changes and keep track of the codes in a source code management

system (such as Github) 

3.2 Perform testing

• Provide different test cases, test scenarios, and test scripts

• Run the tests and report the bugs iteratively

3.3 Structure the overall cloud-based solution

• Integrate systems and applications within the selected environment

• Integrate systems and applications with legacy systems

• Integrate systems and applications with third-party applications

• Distinguish between containers and virtual machines

• Know when to choose containers over virtual machines

3.4 Deploy application on server

• Decide on the strategy to deploy a new application, replacing a previous

one

• Understand version control

• Identify cloud-hosted solutions to create code and data pipelines (e.g.,

cloud-native CI/CD offerings and workflow automation like GitHub

Actions)

• Identify existing CI/CD practices

4. Managing cloud operations

4.1 Manage operational costs

• Understand usage-based pricing

• Scale up and scale down to meet demand cost-effectively

4.2 Develop business continuity and disaster recovery policy

• Identify potential risks and disaster scenarios

• Establish on-premise vs offsite backup strategy

4.3 Provide support to users

• Identify protection and security policies for external and internal users

• Provide application and hardware support for internal users

• Provide training tools for internal and external users

4.4 Monitoring cloud systems

• Log events

• Monitor hardware and software (e.g., interpret graphs and dashboards)

• Understand notifications or alerts for provisioning backup

5. Understanding cloud governance

5.1 Comply with privacy and regulatory requirements

• Identify relevant privacy requirements based on geographical and domain

constraints (e.g. BIPA, HIPAA, PDP, FERPA, COPPA, GDPR, CCPA, etc.) as

well as organization-specific policies

• Identify cloud-provider compliance for these privacy regulations

• Assess types of data managed within the environment

• Assess location and storage of data

• Be aware of NIST and ISO frameworks and standards

Comply with ethical guidelines

• Consider the impact of bias, lack of transparency, and lack of

accountability

• Explain potential bias and transparency challenges with prebuilt services

5.3 Managing cloud security

• Understand options and concepts for identity verification and

authentication, including digital identity and multifactor authentication

• Understand access policies and authorizations (e.g., options for access,

vendor-provided roles vs. custom roles and permissions, and access

hygiene, including least privilege access, removal of access when not

needed, disabling accounts)

• Understand the importance of data security and encryption

• Understand options to protect against unauthorized access in cloud

environments (including intrusion detection and prevention, firewalls)

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