Which cloud capability allows a system to automatically adjust resources in response to load without manual intervention?

• A. Auto-scaling
• B. Elasticity
• C. Load balancing
• D. High availability

Answer: (B)

Elasticity is the cloud capability that automatically increases or decreases resources in response to demand, without human intervention. When the load goes up, the system can add more compute or storage; when it goes down, it can release resources. This automatic adjustment helps maintain performance while controlling costs. A common way to achieve elasticity is through auto-scaling, which dynamically provisions or deprovisions resources based on monitored metrics. Load balancing distributes traffic across existing resources but doesn’t by itself change the total amount of resources, and high availability focuses on uptime and redundancy rather than automatic scaling.