Skip to content

Cloud Fundamentals

Services and models

Qardbox is a free flashcard app for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, with no ads and with your data staying yours. It costs nothing, asks for no account and shows no ads, and your own cards stay unlimited. That is a promise.

You can always create as many flashcards as you like, free of charge.

If you would rather use a ready-made deck such as Cloud Fundamentals, we ask you for a small sum in return. For €0.99 once you get 80 flashcards, sorted into 12 categories and with notes that add to them. You start out learning instead of typing, and whatever you find missing later you add yourself.

Cards
80
Categories
12
Price
€0.99

Get Qardbox on the App Store

Free, no account, no ads

What is in this deck

With this deck you learn the vocabulary of cloud computing: the service models, the shared responsibility line, and what elasticity actually requires.

Every cloud conversation eventually comes back to one line: which side of the shared responsibility model does this sit on. Nearly every publicised cloud breach has been on the customer's side of it.

80 cards on the vocabulary that makes that line visible. The three service models and what you still manage under each. Regions against availability zones, and why surviving a zone failure is not the default. Containers against virtual machines. What a cold start is and why it decides whether serverless fits. Egress cost, which is the line item that makes testing a restore expensive.

The definitions follow the NIST description of cloud computing, a work of the United States government in the public domain. No provider's certification material is used.

The categories decide what comes up: start with “Architecture” alone and add the rest when you are ready.

What you learn

  • IaaS, PaaS and SaaS by what you still manage
  • The shared responsibility model and where breaches happen
  • Regions, zones, scaling and what elasticity requires
  • Containers, serverless and cold starts
  • Identity, keys and why a long-lived key leaks

The categories

12 categories sort the 80 cards. You can filter by category and take on what is due right now.

  1. Architecture
  2. Compute
  3. Concepts
  4. Continuity
  5. Cost
  6. Governance
  7. Identity
  8. Managed services
  9. Models
  10. Networking
  11. Operations
  12. Storage

Where the content comes from

The cards follow The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing, SP 800-145, published by National Institute of Standards and Technology. As of September 2011.

What you get

Here are three of the 80 cards you get when you buy the deck.

  1. Question

    What are the three cloud service models?

    Answer

    Infrastructure, platform and software as a service.

    Note

    The higher you go, the less you manage and the less you control.

  2. Question

    What do you manage under IaaS?

    Answer

    Everything from the operating system up. The provider handles hardware, network and virtualisation.

    Note

    It is the model closest to a data centre, which is why migrations start there.

  3. Question

    What do you manage under PaaS?

    Answer

    Your application and its data. The provider handles the runtime and everything below.

    Note

    It removes patching and scaling work, and it constrains what the application may assume.

Learning with Qardbox

You see a card, you think, you turn it over and say whether you knew it. A round asks nothing more of you, and how the app works out the next date from that is on the page about FSRS-6.

What sits comes back less often, what wobbles comes back soon. You set a daily goal, and when nothing is due the app tells you exactly that instead of inventing work for you. How a round goes is shown on the learning page.

Everything stays on your device. No account, no sign-up, no ads. After the purchase the deck sits in your library like any other subject and can be studied, reordered and extended just like your own.

What it costs, and what it doesn’t

Qardbox itself costs nothing, and it stays that way. Every function is there from the start, with no subscription, no ads and no tiers; what that rests on is on the page about what it costs.

Your own cards stay unlimited, and decks from friends or from the family you read in without a limit, from a file as well. You do not need this deck in order to learn with Qardbox.

It is a shortcut: 80 checked cards for €0.99, once, with Family Sharing. The work you would otherwise do is already done. The App Store shows the price in your currency.

Common questions

Do I have to pay for Qardbox?

No. The app is free, with no subscription and no ads, and every feature is included. The only thing that costs money is a ready-made deck like this one, €0.99 once.

Could I make these cards myself?

Yes, without limit and for free. You can type them, import a file or take over cards from friends. This deck only saves you the work.

How many cards are in Cloud Fundamentals?

80 cards, sorted into 12 categories.

Do I need a connection to study?

Only to download the deck. After that it lives on your device and you study offline. There is no account, and you sign in nowhere.

Which devices does this run on?

On iPhone and iPad from iOS 26, and on Apple Watch. One purchase covers the family through Family Sharing.

Is there a Qardbox for Android?

No. Qardbox is there for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, not for Android and not in a browser.

Get started

Get Qardbox, look at the deck in the store and decide there. The app is free whether you take this deck or not.

Get Qardbox on the App Store

Free on the App Store, no account.

See all ready-made decks