EXIN Cloud Computing Foundation flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

On-demand self-service

A cloud characteristic in which the consumer provisions computing capabilities, such as server time or storage, automatically without requiring human interaction with the provider.

Resource pooling

The provider's computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multitenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned according to demand.

Measured service

Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by metering capability at a level appropriate to the service type, providing transparency to both provider and consumer.

Hybrid cloud

A deployment model combining two or more distinct cloud infrastructures that remain unique entities but are bound by technology enabling data and application portability.

CapEx versus OpEx

Cloud shifts spending from upfront capital investment in owned infrastructure to recurring operating expenditure for consumed services, changing budgeting, accounting, and financial risk profiles.

Elasticity

The ability to acquire and release resources automatically to match current demand, so capacity closely tracks load rather than being fixed in advance.

Infrastructure as a Service

A service model where the consumer provisions processing, storage, and networks, and controls operating systems and applications, while the provider manages the underlying physical infrastructure.

Platform as a Service

A service model where the provider manages infrastructure and runtime, and the consumer deploys applications built with supported languages, libraries, and tools.

Software as a Service

A service model where the provider delivers a complete application; the consumer manages only user access and their own data, not the underlying platform.

Availability zone

An isolated group of datacenters within a region with independent power and networking, allowing deployments to survive the failure of a single datacenter.

Horizontal scaling

Adding or removing instances of a component behind a load balancer so capacity changes without enlarging any single server, bounded mainly by application design.

Serverless computing

An execution model where the provider runs code per event, bills per invocation and duration, scales automatically including to zero, and imposes runtime limits.

Loose coupling

A design principle where components interact through well-defined interfaces and asynchronous messaging, so a failure or change in one does not cascade to others.

Lift and shift

A migration approach that rehosts applications on cloud infrastructure with minimal change, offering speed but limited benefit from cloud-native capabilities.

Refactoring

Re-architecting an application to exploit cloud-native features such as managed services and elasticity; highest effort and benefit among migration options.

Vendor lock-in

Dependence on provider-specific interfaces and data formats that raises the cost of switching providers, reduced by open standards and exportable data.

Cloud center of excellence

A team that sets standards, guardrails, and reusable patterns for cloud adoption, enabling delivery teams rather than centralizing all engineering work.

Total cost of ownership

A comparison summing all costs over the lifecycle, including compute, storage, egress, licensing, integration, training, and decommissioning, not just headline prices.

Exit strategy

A documented plan and contractual rights ensuring data can be exported in a standard format and services transitioned to another provider within a defined period.

Shared responsibility model

The division of security duties: the provider secures infrastructure, while the customer secures data, identities, and configuration, with the split varying by service model.

Federated identity

A trust arrangement letting users authenticate with one identity provider and access multiple services, commonly implemented with SAML or OpenID Connect.

Data sovereignty

The principle that data is subject to the laws and regulations of the jurisdiction where it is stored or processed, making region selection a compliance decision.

Customer-managed keys

An encryption arrangement where the customer generates and controls key material in a hardware security module, so the provider cannot decrypt data without authorization.

Residual risk

The risk remaining after controls are applied; it must be documented, assigned an owner, and formally accepted at an appropriate authority level.

Service level agreement

A contractual commitment defining measurable service levels and remedies such as credits when targets are missed, distinct from internal objectives.

Error budget

The acceptable amount of unreliability derived from the service level objective, used to balance release velocity against stability investment.

Recovery time objective

The maximum acceptable duration to restore a service after disruption; it drives choice among backup, pilot light, warm standby, and active-active strategies.

Recovery point objective

The maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time, determining backup frequency and replication strategy for a workload.

FinOps

A practice combining tagging, rightsizing, commitment discounts, and budget alerting so engineering, finance, and business teams share accountability for cloud spend.

Blue-green deployment

A release technique running two identical environments and switching traffic between them, enabling rapid rollback and limiting the blast radius of a bad release.

Canary release

A deployment pattern routing a small share of traffic to a new version, monitoring error and latency signals, then expanding exposure only if metrics hold.

Circuit breaker

A resilience pattern that stops calls to a failing dependency after a threshold, allowing it to recover and preventing cascading failure across the system.