Question

Difficulty: HardCloud Characteristics and Features (Elasticity, On-Demand, Resource Pooling)

A video game studio hosts its global multiplayer matchmaking service in a cloud environment. System automation rules monitor server load and automatically provision supplementary compute capacity whenever active player sessions surge during unpredicted events. Conversely, as player activity decreases during off-peak hours, the extra capacity is automatically decommissioned to avoid maintaining idle infrastructure. Which essential cloud characteristic is primarily demonstrated in this scenario?

  1. Rapid elasticityAnswer
  2. B
    Resource pooling
  3. C
    On-demand self-service
  4. D
    Measured service

Answer

Rapid elasticity is the cloud computing characteristic demonstrated when infrastructure automatically provisions and decommissions compute capacity in response to fluctuating demand.
Rapid elasticity allows cloud systems to automatically expand or contract resources in real time to match changing workload demands, ensuring high performance during traffic spikes and cost efficiency when demand subsides.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the workload requirements described in the scenario.
The workload experiences variable demand that requires system automation to add capacity during traffic surges and remove capacity during lulls.
Identifying the operational behavior (automatic scaling in direct response to demand fluctuations) isolates the core cloud capability.
2
Evaluate each cloud characteristic against the identified workload behavior.
Rapid elasticity specifically defines automated, dynamic provisioning and de-provisioning of cloud resources matching real-time operational demand.
Differentiating elasticity from manual provisioning (on-demand self-service), multi-tenant hardware sharing (resource pooling), and usage tracking (measured service) reveals the correct characteristic.

Key Concept

Cloud Rapid Elasticity vs. Other Essential NIST Cloud Characteristics
Rate this question