ACA CCO study guide
ACA CCO · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The ACA CCO (Alibaba Cloud Certified Associate – Cloud Computing Operations) is an entry-level credential for people who build and run workloads on Alibaba Cloud rather than design them from scratch. It suits cloud operations engineers, junior system administrators, support staff and developers who need a working command of the platform's core services. The ACA CCO study guide has 6 sections and about 1,815 words.
01Cloud Computing Fundamentals
Alibaba Cloud, like any public cloud, delivers compute, storage, and network resources as metered services. Understand the shared responsibility model : the provider secures the physical infrastructure and virtualization layer, while the customer secures guest OS, applications, data, and identity.
323 words, about 2 min02Elastic Compute Service (ECS) Operations
ECS instances are defined by instance type (vCPU/memory ratio) , image , system disk , network type , and security group . Know the lifecycle: create → start → stop → restart → release.
314 words, about 2 min03Networking and Content Delivery
A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is an isolated network with a CIDR block you define. Inside it, vSwitches partition the VPC into subnets bound to a single zone.
305 words, about 2 min04Storage and Database Services
Alibaba Cloud offers OSS (object storage), cloud disks / ESSD (block storage for ECS), and NAS (shared file storage). Choose by access pattern: OSS for unstructured objects via HTTP API with high durability and lifecycle policies; disks for low-latency single-instance block I/O; NAS for shared POSIX access across multiple instances.
296 words, about 1 min05Security and Identity Management
RAM (Resource Access Management) is the identity service. Understand users , groups , roles , and policies .
265 words, about 1 min06Monitoring, Automation and Troubleshooting
CloudMonitor collects metrics (CPU, memory via agent, disk, network), sets alarms , and triggers notifications or Auto Scaling actions. Distinguish basic metrics (hypervisor-level, no agent) from host metrics requiring the CloudMonitor agent (e.g., memory and process counts).
312 words, about 2 min