Configuration Management and the Cloud complete course is currently being offered by Google through Coursera platform and is Course 5 of 6 in the Google IT Automation with Python Professional Certificate.
About this Course
In this course, you’ll learn how to apply automation to manage fleets of computers. You’ll understand how to automate the process for deploying new computers, keeping those machines updated, managing large-scale changes, and a lot more. We'll discuss managing both physical machines running in our offices and virtual machines running in the Cloud.
Also Check: How to Apply for Coursera Financial Aid

Configuration Management and the Cloud Week 1 Quiz
Answers
Practice Quiz Answers: Automation at Scale
Q1. What is IaC (Infrastructure as Code)?
- Writing
a program from the outside in
- Programs
for industrial use
- Hardware-based
programming with FPGAs
- Using
a version control system to deploy and manage node configurations
Q2. What is the principle called when you think of networked
machines as interchangeable resources instead of individual machines?
- “Flexible
deployment”
- The
“Borg” principle
- Treating
computers like “cattle instead of pets”
- The
principle of “group operation”
Q3. What benefits can we gain by using automation to manage
our configuration? (Check all that apply)
- Consistency
- Simplicity
- Reliability
- Scalability
Q4. Puppet is a commonly used configuration management
system. Which of the following applications are also used for configuration
management?
- Valgrind
- Chef
- Ansible
- CFEngine
Q5. A network administrator is accustomed to manually
configuring the 5 nodes on the network he manages. However, the company he
works for is quickly growing, and there are plans to expand the network to 200
nodes. What is the most reasonable course of action for the network
administrator?
- Prepare
to manually configure 200 nodes
- Hire
more network techs
- Ask
for a reduction in planned nodes to simplify configuration
- Prepare
scripts or download software for automated configuration
Practice Quiz Answers: Introduction to Puppet
Q1. A Puppet agent inspects /etc/conf.d, determines the OS
to be Gentoo Linux, then activates the Portage package manager. What is the
provider in this scenario?
- /etc/conf.d
- Portage
- Gentoo
Linux
- The
Puppet agent
Q2. Which of the following examples show proper Puppet
syntax?
class AutoConfig {
package {
'Executable':
ensure =>
latest,
}
file {
'executable.cfg':
source =>
'puppet:///modules/executable/Autoconfig/executable.cfg'
replace =>
true,
}
service {
'executable.exe':
enable => true,
ensure => running,
}
}
Q3. What is the benefit of grouping resources into classes
when using Puppet?
- Providers
can be specified
- Configuration
management is simplified
- The
title is changeable
- Packages
are not required
Q4. What defines which provider will be used for a
particular resource?
- Puppet
assigns providers based on the resource type and data collected from the
system.
- A
menu allows you to choose providers on a case-by-case basis.
- The
user is required to define providers in a config file.
- Puppet
uses an internet database to decide which provider to use.
Q5. In Puppet’s file resource type, which attribute
overwrites content that already exists?
- Purge
- Overwrite
- Replace
- Save
Practice Quiz Answers: The Building Blocks of Configuration Management
Q1. How is a declarative language different from a
procedural language?
- A
declarative language defines the goal; a procedural language defines the
steps to achieve a goal.
- Declarative
languages are object-based; procedural languages aren’t.
- Declarative
languages aren’t stateless; procedural languages are stateless.
- A
declarative language defines each step required to reach the goal state.
Correct
Q2. Puppet facts are stored in hashes. If we wanted to use a
conditional statement to perform a specific action based on a fact value, what
symbol must precede the facts variable for the Puppet DSL to recognize it?
- @
- #
- $
- &
Q3. What does it mean that Puppet is stateless?
- Puppet
retains information between uses.
- An
action can be performed repeatedly without changing the system after the
first run.
- There
is no state being kept between runs of the agent.
- Actions
are taken only when they are necessary to achieve a goal.
Q4. What does the “test and repair” paradigm mean in
practice?
- There
is no state being kept between runs of the agent.
- We
should plan to repeatedly fix issues.
- We
need to test before and after implementing a fix.
- We
should only take actions when testing determines they need to be done to
reach the requested state
Q5. Where, in Puppet syntax, are the attributes of a
resource found?
- Inside
the curly braces after the resource type
- In
brackets after the if statement
- After
ensure =>
- After
the dollar sign ($)
Configuration Management and the Cloud Week 2 Quiz
Answers
Practice Quiz Answers: Deploying Puppet Locally
Q1. Puppet evaluates all functions, conditionals, and
variables for each individual system, and generates a list of rules for that
specific system. What are these individual lists of rules called?
- Manifests
- Dictionaries
- Catalogs
- Modules
Q2. After we install new modules that were made and shared
by others, which folder in the module’s directory will contain the new
functions and facts?
- files
- manifests
- lib
- templates
Q3. What file extension do manifest files use?
- .cfg
- .exe
- .pp
- .man
Q4. What is contained in the metadata.json file of a Puppet
module?
- Manifest
files
- Additional
data about the module
- Configuration
information
- Pre-processed
data
Q5. What does Puppet syntax dictate we do when referring to
another resource attribute?
- Enter
the package title before curly braces
- Follow
the attribute with a semicolon
- Capitalize
the attribute
- Type
the attribute in lowercase
Practice Quiz Answers: Deploying Puppet to Clients
Q1. When defining nodes, how do we identify a specific node
that we want to set rules for?
- By
using the machine’s MAC address
- By
specifying the node’s Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs)
- User-defined
names
- Using
XML tags
Q2. When a Puppet agent evaluates the state of each
component in the manifest, it uses gathered facts about the system to decide
which rules to apply. What tool can these facts be “plugged into” in order to
simplify the management of the content of our Puppet configuration files?
- Node
definitions
- Certificates
- Templates
- Modules
Q3. What is the first thing that happens after a node
connects to the Puppet master for the first time?
- The
node identifies an open port.
- The
Puppet-master requests third-party authentication.
- The
node requests a certificate.
- The
user can immediately add modules.
Q4. What does FQDN stand for, and what is it?
- Feedback
Query Download Noise, which is extraneous data in feedback queries
- Far
Quantum Data Node, which is a server node utilizing quantum entanglement
- Fairly
Quantized Directory Network, which is a network consisting of equitable
counted folders
- Fully
Qualified Domain Name, which is the full address for a node
Q5. What type of cryptographic security framework does
Puppet use to authenticate individual nodes?
- Single
Sign On (SSO)
- Public
Key Infrastructure (PKI)
- Fully
Qualified Domain Name (FQDN)
- Token
authentication
Practice Quiz Answers: Updating Deployments
Q1. What is a production environment in Puppet?
- The
software used for software development such as IDEs.
- The
parts of the infrastructure where a service is executed, and served to its
users.
- A
cloud service for commercial production.
- A
Virtual Machine reserved for beta software.
Q2. What is the –noop parameter used for?
- Passing
a variable called noop to Puppet
- Adding
conditional rules to manifests
- Defining
what operations not to perform in a manifest
- Simulating
manifest evaluation without taking any actions
Q3. What do rspec tests do?
- Checks
that nodes can connect to the puppet master correctly
- Check
the specification of the current node
- Check
the manifests for specific content
- Checks
that the node is running the correct operating system
Q4. How are canary environments used in testing?
- To
store unused code
- As
a test environment to detect problems before they reach the production
environment
- As
a repository for alternative coding methods for a particular problem
- As
a test environment for final software versions
Q5. What are efficient ways to check the syntax of the
manifest? (Check all that apply)
- Run
full No Operations simulations
- Run
rspec tests
- Test
manually
- puppet
parser validate
Configuration Management and the Cloud Week 3 Quiz
Answers
Practice Quiz Answers: Automating Cloud Deployments
Q1. In order to detect and correct errors before end users
are affected, what technique(s) should we set up?
- Monitoring
and alerting
- Orchestration
- Autoscaling
- Infrastructure
as Code
Q2. When accessing a website, your web browser retrieves the
IP address of a specific node in order to load the site. What is this node
called?
- Gate
node
- Entry
point
- Access
machine
- Front
line
Q3. What simple load-balancing technique just assigns to
each node one request at a time?
- Random
- Round
Robin
- Least
connections
- Source
IP
Q4. Which cloud automation technique spins up more VMs into
instance groups when demand increases, and shuts down VMs when demand
decreases?
- Infrastructure
as Code
- Autoscaling
- Load
Balancing
- Orchestration
Q5. Which of the following are examples of orchestration
tools used to manage cloud resources as code? (Check all that apply)
- Terraform
- CloudFormation
- Azure
Resource Manager
- CloudFlare
Practice Quiz Answers: Cloud Computing
Q1. When we use cloud services provided to the general
consumer, such as Google Suite or Gmail, what cloud deployment model are we
using?
- Hybrid
cloud
- Private
cloud
- Public
cloud
- Multi-cloud
Q2. What is a container?
- A
cloud deployment model that is a combination of public and private clouds
- A
synonym for virtual machine
- A
public file server
- A
virtualized environment containing applications and configurations that
can run quickly and reliably on any computing environment
Q3. Select the examples of Managed Web Application
Platforms. (Check all that apply)
- Google
App Engine.
- Amazon
Elastic Beanstalk
- Microsoft
App Service.
- Dropbox
Q4. When a company solely owns and manages its own cloud
infrastructure, what type of cloud deployment model are they using?
- Public
cloud
- Hybrid
cloud
- Private
cloud
- Multi-cloud
Q5. Which “direction” are we scaling when we add RAM or CPU
resources to individual nodes?
- Down
- Horizontal
- Up
- Vertical
Practice Quiz Answers: Managing Instances in the Cloud
Q1. What is templating?
- The
process of capturing the entire system configuration to enable us to
reproduce virtual machines
- The
process of copying virtual machines
- The
process of creating a new virtual machine instance
- The
process of testing configurations against known-working settings
Q2. Why is it important to consider the region and zone for
your cloud service?
- To
follow local laws and regulations
- To
avoid time zone discrepancy
- To
avoid language barriers
- To
ensure bandwidth and reliability for users
Q3. What option is used to determine which OS will run on
the VM?
- Machine
type
- Boot
disk
- Region
- Template
Q4. When setting up a new series of VMs using a reference
image, what are some possible options for upgrading services running on our VM
at scale?
- Manually
updating files via the command line
- Create
a new reference image each update
- Editing
parameters and uploading files individually through the web interface
- Use
a configuration management system like Puppet
Q5. When using gcloud to manage VMs, what two parameters
tell gcloud that a) we want to manage our VM resources and b) that we want to
deal with individual VMs? (Check two)
- compute
- init
- instances
- Template
Configuration Management and the Cloud Week 4 Quiz
Answers
Practice Quiz Answers: Building Software for the Cloud
Q1. What is latency in terms of Cloud storage?
- The
measure of how many reads or writes you can do in one second, no matter
how much data you’re accessing.
- The
amount of data that you can read, and write in a given amount of time.
- The
amount of time it takes to complete a read or write operation.
- The
time delay between an input and output.
Q2. Which of the following statements about sticky sessions
are true? (Select all that apply.)
- All
requests from the same client always go to the same backend server.
- Sticky
sessions maintain an even load.
- They
should only be used when needed.
- They
can cause problems during migration.
Q3. If you run into limitations such as rate limits or
utilization limits, you should contact the Cloud provider and ask for a _.
- Beta
version
- Quota
increase
- A/B
test
- Blob
storage solution
Q4. What is the term referring to everything needed to run a
service?
- Environment
- Provisions
- Utilization
limits
- Continuous
integration
Q5. What is the term referring to a network of hosts spread
in different geographical locations, allowing ISPs to be as close as possible
to content?
- Domain
Name Service
- Continuous
Deployment
- Platform
as a Service
- Content
delivery network
Practice Quiz Answers: Monitoring & Alerting
Q1. What is a Service Level Agreement?
- An
agreement between the user and developer.
- A
strict commitment between a provider and a client.
- An
agreement between service providers.
- A
guarantee of service quality.
Q2. What is the most important aspect of an alert?
- It
must be actionable.
- It
must require a human to be notified.
- It
must require immediate action.
- It
must precisely describe the cause of the issue.
Q3. Which part of an HTTP message from a web server is
useful for tracking the overall status of the response and can be monitored and
logged?
- A
triggered alert
- The
data pushed back to the client
- Metrics
sent from the server
- The
response code in the server’s message
Q4. To set up a new alert, we have to configure the _ that
triggers the alert.
- Condition
- Metric
- Incident
- Service
Level Objective (SLO)
Q5. When we collect metrics from inside a system, this is
known as __ monitoring.
- White-box
- Black-box
- Network
- Log
Practice Quiz Answers: Troubleshooting & Debugging
Q1. Which of the following are valid strategies for recovery
after encountering service failure? (Select all that apply.)
- Switching
to a secondary instance.
- Setting
up monitoring and alerts.
- Restoring
from backup.
- Performing
a rollback to a previous version.
Q2. Which of the following concepts provide redundancy?
(Select all that apply.)
- Having
a secondary instance of a VM.
- Having
a secondary Cloud vendor.
- Having
automatic backups configured.
- Performing
a rollback.
Q3. If you operate a service that stores any kind of data,
what are some critical steps to ensure disaster recovery? (Select all that
apply)
- Implement
automated backups
- Use
redundant systems wherever possible
- Test
backups by restoring
- Never
delete old backups
Q4. What is the correct term for packaged applications that
are shipped with all needed libraries and dependencies, and allows the
application to run in isolation?
- Rollback
- Secondary
instance
- Containers
- Disk
Image
Q5. Using a large variety of containerised applications can
get complicated and messy. What are some important tips for solving problems
when using containers? (Select all that apply)
- Use
extensive logging in all parts
- Reduce
the number of containers
- Reuse
container configurations
- Use test instances
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