Question


  1. What is Server Virtualization? Explain its architecture, discuss the role of hypervisors, mention leading players and provide a real-world example where server virtualization is applied in industry.
  2. What is a Hybrid Cloud? Explain its architecture and working, identify major providers and provide a real-time example where organizations adopt Hybrid Cloud for balancing scalability and security.
  3. Explain the Software as a Service (SaaS) model in detail. Describe its architecture, mention the leading SaaS providers, and give a real-world example of its adoption in business operations.
  4. Question
    1. A startup is planning to launch a video streaming platform. They expect user traffic to vary drastically (low during the day, very high during evenings and weekends). They have to choose between:
      1. Deploying applications on physical servers, or
      2. Using virtual machines/containers on AWS Cloud.
    2. As their technical advisor, which approach will you recommend and why? Discuss in terms of scalability, cost-effectiveness, virtualization benefits, and service availability.
  5. Explain the different types of computing paradigms. Support your answer with architecture details, key players, and real-time examples for each.
  6. what is AWS based services, Explain its key features, advantages, limitations, and provide real-world applications where each is best suited.

Answers


  1. What is Server Virtualization? Explain its architecture, discuss the role of hypervisors, mention leading players and provide a real-world example where server virtualization is applied in industry.

    1. Server Virtualization is a technique in which a physical server is divided into multiple isolated virtual machines (VMs) using software called a hypervisor. Each VM behaves like an independent server with its own operating system and applications, even though they share the same underlying hardware.
    2. Need for Server Virtualization
      1. Better utilization of hardware resources
      2. Reduced server sprawl
      3. Cost-friendly deployment
      4. Faster provisioning and management
    3. Architecture of Server Virtualization
      1. Server virtualization architecture consists of the following layers:

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      2. Physical Hardware Layer

        1. This includes:
          1. CPU
          2. RAM
          3. Storage devices
          4. Network interfaces
        2. This hardware is the foundation on which virtualization is deployed.
      3. Hypervisor Layer

        1. The hypervisor sits directly on hardware or on a host OS and allows creation of multiple VMs by:
          1. Allocating resources (CPU/RAM/storage)
          2. Isolating VMs
          3. Managing scheduling and execution
      4. Virtual Machine Layer

        1. Each VM includes:
          1. A virtual CPU
          2. Virtual memory
          3. Virtual disk
          4. Its own OS (Windows/Linux)
          5. Applications
        2. VMs work independently even if one VM crashes.
      5. Management Layer

        1. Software tools used to:
          1. Provision VMs
          2. Monitor performance
          3. Apply patches
          4. Manage storage and networking
        2. Examples: vCenter, Hyper-V Manager.
    4. Role of Hypervisors
      1. The hypervisor is the central component in virtualization. It:
        1. Creates and runs Virtual Machines
        2. Allocates hardware resources dynamically
        3. Ensures isolation between VMs
        4. Performs scheduling of CPU cycles and memory
        5. Provides live migration capability (moving VMs between hosts without shutdown)
        6. Handles fault tolerance and load balancing
    5. Types of Hypervisors
      1. Type 1 (Bare Metal): Runs directly on hardware
        1. Examples: VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM
      2. Type 2 (Hosted): Runs on top of a host operating system
        1. Examples: VMware Workstation, Oracle VirtualBox
    6. Leading Players in Server Virtualization
      1. VMware (vSphere, ESXi) – industry leader
      2. Microsoft (Hyper-V)
      3. Red Hat KVM
      4. Citrix Hypervisor (XenServer)
      5. Oracle VM
    7. Real-World Industry Example
      1. Banking Sector (ICICI, HDFC, SBI):
        1. Banks run hundreds of applications such as transaction processing, loan management, and analytics. Using VMware virtualization, banks consolidate tens of physical servers into a few high-capacity hosts.
        2. This reduces hardware cost, increases security isolation, and ensures quick provisioning of new applications.

  2. What is a Hybrid Cloud? Explain its architecture and working, identify major providers and provide a real-time example where organizations adopt Hybrid Cloud for balancing scalability and security.

    1. A Hybrid Cloud is a computing environment that combines private cloud (on-premises infrastructure) and public cloud (services like AWS, Azure, GCP) and enables seamless data and application portability between them.
    2. It provides the security of private cloud and the scalability of public cloud.
    3. Architecture of Hybrid Cloud
    4. Working of Hybrid Cloud
    5. Advantages
    6. Major Hybrid Cloud Providers
    7. Real-Time Example