Learn to discuss multi-cloud and hybrid cloud strategies in English — covering architecture patterns, vendor lock-in, workload portability, and cloud-agnostic design.
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What is the difference between 'multi-cloud' and 'hybrid cloud'?
Multi-cloud means using services from multiple public cloud providers (e.g. AWS + GCP + Azure). Hybrid cloud means combining public cloud with private cloud or on-premises infrastructure. They are distinct strategies that can also be combined.
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What is 'vendor lock-in' in a cloud context?
Vendor lock-in occurs when your architecture becomes so dependent on one provider's proprietary services (e.g. AWS Lambda, Azure Cosmos DB) that migrating to another provider would require significant rewrites. Multi-cloud and open standards are common mitigations.
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What is a 'cloud-agnostic' architecture?
A cloud-agnostic architecture uses open standards, containerised workloads, and abstraction layers so the system can run on AWS, GCP, Azure, or on-premises with minimal or no changes. Tools like Kubernetes, Terraform, and open-source databases support this approach.
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What is 'workload portability'?
Workload portability means a workload (containerised app, database, pipeline) can be moved between environments — cloud providers, regions, or on-premises — without significant reconfiguration. Kubernetes, standard container images, and cloud-agnostic IaC are key enablers.
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What is a 'cloud bursting' strategy?
Cloud bursting is a hybrid cloud pattern: run workloads on-premises during normal load, and automatically 'burst' additional capacity into the public cloud during peak demand. This avoids over-provisioning on-premises infrastructure.
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What does 'egress cost' refer to in cloud pricing?
Egress costs are fees charged when data leaves a cloud provider's network (to the internet or to another cloud). They are a significant factor in multi-cloud architecture — high egress costs make it expensive to move data between clouds, reinforcing vendor lock-in.
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What is a 'landing zone' in cloud adoption?
A landing zone is a foundation: a set of pre-built accounts, networking, security policies, IAM roles, and monitoring configured to your organisation's standards. You deploy workloads into the landing zone rather than building governance from scratch for each project.
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What is 'data sovereignty' and why does it matter in cloud architecture?
Data sovereignty means data must remain within certain geographic or legal boundaries (e.g. EU GDPR requires EU residents' data to stay in the EU). In cloud architecture, it drives region selection, data residency configurations, and sometimes the choice of cloud provider.
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What does 'CSPM' stand for and what does it do?
CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management) tools continuously scan cloud environments for misconfigurations, compliance violations, and security risks (e.g. public S3 buckets, over-permissive IAM roles). Examples: AWS Security Hub, Prisma Cloud, Wiz.
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What is 'cloud-native' vs 'cloud-enabled' vs 'cloud-hosted'?
The three terms describe different levels of cloud adoption maturity. Cloud-hosted (lift and shift) is fast but misses cloud benefits. Cloud-enabled uses some managed services. Cloud-native embraces microservices, auto-scaling, managed databases, event-driven patterns, and infrastructure as code from the ground up.