Cloud Digital Leader Practice Question: A startup wants to deploy a web application…

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✗

  Resource pooling, which allows the startup to share physical hardware with other tenants

  Why it's wrong here

  Resource pooling is the mechanism by which cloud providers serve many customers from shared hardware. It enables cloud economics but is a provider characteristic, not the billing model that ensures the startup pays only for what it uses.

• ✓

  Measured service / pay-per-use pricing, where the startup is billed only for actual resource consumption with no payment for idle capacity

  Why this is correct

  Measured service is the NIST cloud characteristic that directly answers this. The startup is metered — billed for actual CPU, memory, network, and storage consumed. During low-traffic periods, bills are low. During spikes, costs scale up. No capacity is pre-purchased and wasted.

• ✗

  Broad network access, which allows the application to be reached from any device globally

  Why it's wrong here

  Broad network access is an NIST cloud characteristic that covers the ability to reach services over the network through standard protocols, enabling access from a variety of client platforms like laptops, smartphones, and workstations. While this is a fundamental attribute of cloud computing, it has no bearing on the billing mechanism used by the provider. The startup's concern is not about how geographically or device-diverse its users can be, but about whether it pays only for consumed compute and storage. Thus, broad network access fails to address the pay-as-you-go cost structure described in the question.

• ✗

  On-demand self-service, which allows the startup to provision resources through a web interface without calling a sales team

  Why it's wrong here

  On-demand self-service is the NIST characteristic that allows a consumer to provision computing capabilities, such as virtual machines or storage, unilaterally and automatically—typically via a web console or API—without requiring human interaction with the provider's sales or support team. This is a measure of provisioning agility and operational friction, not a financial settlement model. While it does enable near-instant scaling up or down, that ability alone does not guarantee that billing is metered and tied exclusively to actual resource usage. The startup's payment model—paying only for what it consumes with no charge for idle capacity—is a direct consequence of the provider's metering infrastructure, not of self-service provisioning.

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