UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2019/2020
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREES OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN
DATA COMMUNICATIONS/ DATA ANALYTICS/ INFORMATION
SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
MDA 5102/ MDC 5103/ MISM 5102: DATA STORAGE AND CLOUD
SERVICES
ORDINARY EXAMINATIONS
DATE: AUGUST, 2019 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer Question One & ANY OTHER TWO questions.
QUESTION ONE [20 MARKS]
a) Explain any THREE strategies for optimizing disk or block access. (6 Marks)
b) Explain the following concepts related to data backup and recovery:
i) Hot backup (2 Marks)
ii) Bare metal recovery (2 Marks)
iii) Backup server (2 Marks)
c) Briefly compare the JBOD and RAID storage architectures. (2 Marks)
d) Discuss the key characteristics of RAID with distributed parity. (3 Marks)
e) Explain how cloud computing promotes device independence. (3 Marks)
QUESTION TWO [15 MARKS]
a) THREE key characteristics define cloud data, applications services and infrastructure.
Explain. (3 Marks)
b) Explain how hardware RAID systems ensure that a single point of failure will not stop the
functioning of the system. (4 Marks)
c) About 80-90% of the data created in daily transactions is never accessed again. Nonetheless,
organizations are required to retain all their data for long time periods. Disk-based solutions
quickly become ineffective for storing such “less critical” but exponentially growing data.
Required:
Discuss the inherent characteristics of tape-based technologies that make tape storage a more
effective solution. (8 Marks)
QUESTION THREE [15 MARKS]
a) Discuss the value of information to a business. (4 Marks)
b) Explain the challenges that can be encountered in managing information. (3 Marks)
c) Explain the concept of the SAN and discuss the benefits and challenges of configuring a SAN
at the workplace. (8 Marks)
QUESTION FOUR [15 MARKS]
With growing business and regulatory demands for data storage, retention, and availability,
organizations are faced with the task of backing up an ever-increasing amount of data. This task
becomes more challenging as demand for consistent backup and quick restore of data increases
throughout the enterprise.
Required:
b) Discuss any TWO basic backup topologies. (2 Marks)
c) Explain the data restoration process and also illustrate this graphically. (7 Marks)
d) Explain how the backup process may be affected by the following: (6 Marks)
i) Location
ii) File size and number of files
iii) Data compression.
