(SEM VII) THEORY EXAMINATION 2024-25 CLOUD COMPUTING

CLOUD COMPUTING (KCS713)

Time: 3 Hours | Maximum Marks: 100

SECTION A (10 × 2 = 20 Marks)

(Attempt all questions in brief)

1(a) Define cloud computing and trace its evolution.

Cloud computing is a model that provides on-demand access to shared computing resources such as servers, storage, networks, and applications over the internet with minimal management effort.
Its evolution began from mainframes, moved to client-server systems, then virtualization, and finally to modern public, private, and hybrid clouds.

1(b) Challenges faced during the evolution of cloud computing.

Major challenges included lack of standardization, security and privacy concerns, data migration complexity, vendor lock-in, bandwidth limitations, and trust in third-party providers.

1(c) Explain virtualization.

Virtualization is a technology that allows multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical machine by abstracting hardware resources using a hypervisor.

1(d) Compare implementation levels of virtualization.

1(e) Features and benefits of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.

IaaS: Infrastructure control, scalability, reduced hardware cost

PaaS: Faster development, platform management handled by provider

SaaS: Ready-to-use software, no installation, cost-effective

1(f) Storage-as-a-Service.

It provides scalable, on-demand storage over the cloud where users pay only for what they use. Examples include Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage.

1(g) Identity and Access Management (IAM).

IAM controls user authentication and authorization using roles, policies, and permissions to ensure secure access to cloud resources.

1(h) Encryption techniques for securing cloud resources.

Encryption techniques include data-at-rest encryption, data-in-transit encryption, symmetric encryption (AES), and asymmetric encryption (RSA).

1(i) Cloud federation.

Cloud federation is the interconnection of multiple cloud providers that allows sharing of resources, data, and services across different clouds.

1(j) Role of federated services and applications.

Federated services enable interoperability, scalability, load balancing, cost optimization, and seamless service delivery across multiple cloud platforms.

SECTION B (Attempt any THREE) (3 × 10 = 30 Marks)

2(a) Parallel computing principles & workload balancing (10,000 tasks)

Parallel computing divides tasks among multiple nodes to execute simultaneously.

If:
Total tasks = 10,000                                            Number of nodes = 10

Workload per node:                                            Tasks per node=1000010=1000\text{Tasks per node} = \frac{10000}{10} = 1000Tasks per node=1010000​=1000

Balanced workload improves performance and reduces execution time.

2(b) Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) & scalability

SOA structures applications as reusable services.
It improves scalability by allowing independent scaling of services based on demand.

2(c) Architectural challenges & performance–security trade-off

Higher encryption improves security but increases processing time.

Example:

Without encryption: response time = 100 ms         With encryption: response time = 130 ms

Trade-off = 30 ms overhead for better security

2(d) Inter-cloud resource management simulation

During peak demand, Cloud A borrows resources from Cloud B.

Example:

Required VMs = 500                                                Cloud A capacity = 350

Cloud B provides = 150                                           This prevents downtime and ensures SLA compliance.

2(e) Cloud in disaster recovery & downtime cost

Cloud enables fast backup, replication, and failover.

If:                                                                               Downtime = 2 hours
Loss per hour = ₹50,000                                           Downtime cost = ₹100,000

SECTION C (Attempt any ONE) (10 Marks)

3(a) Traditional IT vs Cloud provisioning (cost model)

Example:                                                                     Traditional cost/year = ₹12,00,000
Cloud cost/year = ₹6,00,000                                      Savings = ₹6,00,000

3(b) Elasticity model (10,000 → 1,000,000 users)

Elasticity allows automatic scaling.

If:                                                                                 10,000 users need 10 servers

1,000,000 users need 1000 servers                              Cloud scales resources dynamically, preventing service failure.