This is an ENTERPRISE PERFORMANCE ARCHITECTURE/Computer science ONLINE EXAM scheduled Wednesday 13/1/2021 from 12:30 to 14:30 Irish time
A 2-hour Exam with NO time extension.
Please see attached previous year exam papers for better preparation.
Please help me get high grades.
This is my 4th order in 2 days
Question 1 A startup company has asked you to write a report (of at least 400 words) discussing the advantages and disadvantages of using containerization. In your report, be sure to discuss two examples of container isolation, two examples of resource virtualization, and always clearly compare and contrast containers and Virtual Machines. Begin your report by explaining what experience you have of containerization and the practical steps involved in creating a container image. At the end of the report, make sure to provide a summary and recommendation to the company. [25 marks] Question 2 Define the following terms, and provide a clear example of each: 1. Recovery Time Objective (RTO) [5 marks] 2. Recovery Point Objective (RPO) [5 marks] For a company that wishes to drive RTO and RPO to the lowest levels possible, what kind of disaster recovery solution would you recommend? Use a clearly labelled diagram to support your answer, and discuss each component in the diagram. Make sure to clearly explain why the disaster recovery solution you recommend meets the needs of the company as defined here. [15 marks] Question 3 Define the following terms, and provide a clear example of each: 1. Vertical Scaling [5 marks] 2. Horizontal Scaling [5 marks] A company has recently asked you for advice. They had a CPU with 4-cores as their main server and, due to high CPU utilization, they scaled to a server with 16-cores. However, much to their surprise, they did not see a noticeable improvement in the performance of the server and they have asked for your help. Write a report providing a possible explanation to the problem identified here. Be sure to give a clear example to support your explanation. In your report you should also discuss a solution to this problem, using a clearly labelled diagram. [15 marks] Question 4 Define the following terms, and provide a clear example of each: 1. Synchronous Communication [5 marks] 2. Asynchronous Message Queues [5 marks] A company has recently asked you for advice. The recently suffered an company-wide IT outage. Upon investigation it was found they a failure in a minor software subsystem caused a cascading failure right across their software services and customer facing systems. The team investigating the outage concluded: - all communication between software components is completely synchronous - an asynchronous message queue might improve the resilience of their overall software systems. Write a report providing a detailed example of how an asynchronous message queue could improve the resilience of the overall software systems. In your report use a clearly labelled diagram and be sure to conclude with advice and recommendations for the company. [15 marks] Question 5 1. The following equation: is often used to model computer systems performance. (a) Explain each term in the equation - and clearly identify the unit of measurement in each case. [10 marks] (b) How many classes of users are modelled in this equation? What are they? [5 marks] 2. Explain, by way of an example, how increasing throughput affects service demand when the server infrastructure is kept constant (ie, no change or improvement in resources) [10 marks] Useful Formulae ● Utilization Law: Ui = Si × Xi ● Forced Flow: Xi = Vi × X0 ● Service Demand: Di = Vi × Si =Ui / X0 ● Little’s Law: N = XR Question 1 Rapid Data Solutions (RDS) have implemented an on premises scaling solution for their compute layer which is based on python3 & linux. Currently RDS use Virtual Machines to run their compute layer - dynamically adding and removing instances when required, but notice that starting and stopping VMs is slow, and that each VM contains a large amount of OS file system redundancy. RDS find that they typically do not use the CPU virtualization features of their current VM solution. RDS would like a lightweight alternative to VMs and they have asked you to advise. RDS have explained that it is very important that the compute layer instances are completely isolated from each other in the proposed new solution. Write a 400 word report to RDS discussing an alternative to VMs that provides the high degree of isolation required and addresses the problems mentioned above. Be sure in your report to discuss 4 types of isolation your proposed solution provides and provide clear examples in each case. [25 marks] Question 2 Beta Systems have recently launched a new on premises solution using the architecture shown below. The architecture is divided into three tiers - a public subnet that receives HTTP traffic from web clients, a private subnet that running an application server (python3), and a private subnet that incorporates the database server. Beta Systems run these services from their single on-premises server room. Beta Systems are concerned about disaster recovery in the event of a systems failure, and have asked you to advise. Beta Systems have SLAs that require a high degree of availability as they process requests from all geographical regions, and they are also concerned about cost effectiveness. Beta Systems management have advised you that maintaining an on-premises server room is important to them. You are required to prepare a 400 word report advising Beta Systems on an appropriate disaster recovery solution, clearly discussing the advantages and disadvantages of your solution. You should make clear in your report how the proposed solution address the Beta Systems business model as described, and use a clearly labelled diagram for each component. [25 marks] Beta Systems Current On Premises Architecture Question 3 Quest Sales Services (QSS) is an on-premises 24x7 global online shopping service for technology products. QSS have noticed that their production compute servers are running at an average 50% utilization throughout the week. As Christmas approaches, QSS are planning a new marketing campaign which they think will result in a 500% increase in sales volumes through their servers. The QSS IT department have proposed buying and installing new servers in order to meet this expected increase in traffic. QSS management are unsure how best to proceed and have asked you to assist. You are required to prepare a 400 word report advising QSS on an alternative strategy to that proposed by the IT department. Begin your report by explaining why the IT department strategy may not be cost-effective, giving a clear example. You should make clear in your report how the new architecture you propose addresses the QSS business model and concerns as described, and use a clearly labelled diagram for each component of the architecture. [25 marks] Question 4 (i) The following equation: is often used to model computer systems performance. (a) Explain each term in the equation - and clearly identify the unit of measurement in each case. [10 marks] (b) How many classes of users are modelled in this equation? What are they? [5 marks] (ii) Explain, by way of an example, how increasing throughput affects service demand when the server infrastructure is kept constant (ie, no change or improvement in resources) [10 marks] Question 5 ACS Computing is a software company that sells online advertising using their distributed architecture as shown below: ACS Computing Distributed Architecture ACS recently suffered a system-wide service outage that resulted in a total loss of services for 3 hours. A post incident review identified the distributed nature of the architecture as one of the key issues. In particular, the review identified the fact that a failure in the inventory services affected all components in the system due to the synchronous nature of the communications between all the distributed components. Write a 400 word report explaining how a failure in one component could result in system-wide outage. You should advise how this problem could be remedied and to recommend how the above architecture could be modified to accommodate this change. Sketch a revised architecture and label your changes clearly. [25 marks] Appendix - Useful Formulae 1. Utilization Law: Ui = Si × Xi 2. Forced Flow: Xi = Vi × X0 3. Service Demand: Di = Vi × Si =Ui / X0 4. Little’s Law: N = XR Question 1 Fast Financial Solutions (FFS) have three main IT systems in their organisation. These systems are Finance (Windows C# & Oracle DB), Inventory (Linux Java & MySQL) and Marketing (Windows, Java & SQL Server). Each system is configured differently, with different hardware specifications. In the past, these systems were not integrated with each other, but the new CIO wants to develop a new set of services using an appropriate systems integration architecture to integrate the data from the three IT systems mentioned. The first of these services to be implemented is one that takes data as follows: ● Data from Finance on customers that pay on time ● Data from Inventory on excess products levels ● Data from Marketing on customers email addresses and names This new service will send emails to customers that pay on time, offering them a reduced price on products with excess inventory levels. Having met and talked to the IT groups involved, you discover that the Inventory system is heavily utilised with average response times exceeding 15-20 seconds per HTTP request. You are required to write a 400 word report discussing a systems integration