Which term describes the ability of cloud resources to scale automatically in response to demand?

Which term describes the ability of cloud resources to scale automatically in response to demand?

• A. SLA
• B. Availability
• C. Elasticity
• D. Throughput

Answer: (C)

Elasticity is the ability of cloud resources to expand or contract automatically as demand changes. This concept is what enables auto-scaling, where the system adds or removes resources in response to workload metrics like CPU usage, request rate, or queue length. That automatic adjustment helps maintain performance while optimizing costs. This differs from other terms: an SLA describes guaranteed service levels and performance commitments; availability focuses on how often the service is accessible; throughput measures how much work can be processed in a given time. So elasticity best captures the automatic scaling behavior in response to demand. For example, when traffic spikes, more instances are provisioned automatically, and when demand drops, excess instances are terminated to save resources.

Elasticity is the ability of cloud resources to expand or contract automatically as demand changes. This concept is what enables auto-scaling, where the system adds or removes resources in response to workload metrics like CPU usage, request rate, or queue length. That automatic adjustment helps maintain performance while optimizing costs.

This differs from other terms: an SLA describes guaranteed service levels and performance commitments; availability focuses on how often the service is accessible; throughput measures how much work can be processed in a given time. So elasticity best captures the automatic scaling behavior in response to demand. For example, when traffic spikes, more instances are provisioned automatically, and when demand drops, excess instances are terminated to save resources.