In cloud architecture, what does elastic compute enable?

• A. Fixed resource allocation.
• B. Scale compute resources up or down automatically in response to demand.
• C. Decommission cloud services.
• D. Use only local processing.

Answer: (B)

Elastic compute lets your cloud infrastructure automatically adjust the amount of compute power you’re using—scaling the number of machines or containers up when demand rises and down when demand falls. This keeps performance steady during traffic surges while avoiding paying for idle capacity during lulls. It works through autoscaling policies that monitor metrics like CPU usage, request rate, or queue length and then add or remove instances, often paired with load balancers to keep traffic evenly distributed. This is why it’s the best fit: it captures the automatic, demand-driven resizing that fixed resources or local-only processing don’t provide, and it’s not about decommissioning services.