MS-900 Describe cloud concepts Practice Question
An e-commerce company hosts its website on a public cloud IaaS platform. The site experiences varying traffic throughout the year. The cloud provider automatically adds more virtual servers during peak traffic and removes them when demand drops. The company only pays for the resources used during each period. Which two cloud characteristics are demonstrated? (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse 'on-demand self-service' with automatic scaling, but on-demand self-service is about manual provisioning without provider interaction, not about the system's ability to scale automatically based on load.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Rapid elasticity
Rapid elasticity is demonstrated because the cloud provider automatically scales virtual servers up or down in response to varying traffic, which is a key characteristic of cloud computing where resources can be provisioned and released elastically to match demand. Measured service is demonstrated because the company only pays for the resources used during each period, meaning the provider meters resource usage (e.g., CPU hours, memory, bandwidth) and bills accordingly, which is a core attribute of cloud services.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Rapid elasticity
Why this is correct
Rapid elasticity is a core NIST characteristic of cloud computing where resources can be provisioned and released automatically, often in response to demand, to scale outward and inward rapidly. In this IaaS scenario, the automatic addition and removal of VMs based on traffic levels directly demonstrates this capability, making it the correct answer.
- ✓
Measured service
Why this is correct
Measured service means that cloud resource usage is metered, monitored, and reported to both the provider and the consumer, enabling pay-per-use billing. The company being charged only for the VMs and resources actually consumed, rather than a flat fee, is a concrete illustration of measured service in action.
- ✗
On-demand self-service
Why it's wrong here
On-demand self-service allows a user to provision computing capabilities—such as VMs or storage—automatically, without needing manual intervention from the cloud provider. Although the company can scale its IaaS environment, the scenario emphasizes automatic elastic scaling triggered by traffic, not a user-initiated provisioning action, so this characteristic is not the one being highlighted.
- ✗
Resource pooling
Why it's wrong here
Resource pooling refers to the cloud provider's use of a multi-tenant model where compute, storage, and network resources are pooled and dynamically assigned to serve multiple consumers. The scenario describes a single company's scaling of its own VMs and does not illustrate shared infrastructure or multi-tenancy, making resource pooling an incorrect characterization of the situation.
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