Scalability vs. Elasticity: Which Cloud Concept Auto-Adjusts Resources?
An online gaming company needs a cloud solution that will allow for more virtual resources to be deployed when tournaments are held. The number of users who access the service increases during tournaments. The company also needs the resources to return to baseline levels once the resources are not needed in order to reduce cost. Which of the following cloud concepts would provide the best solution?
Community Votes
100% of anonymous learners picked answer D. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.
Community Insight
The exam tests the difference between scalability—planned expansion to handle growth—and elasticity—automatic scaling up and down in real time to match demand and reduce cost when resources are no longer needed.
This CompTIA Network+ N10-008 question asks which cloud concept best supports dynamically adding and removing virtual resources for tournament demand while controlling costs. The exam community overwhelmingly confirms the correct answer is elasticity, not scalability.
Choosing Scalability is the most common mistake because it is often confused with elasticity; however, scalability alone does not guarantee that resources will automatically shrink back to baseline levels, which is the key requirement in the question.
Community Discussion (3 comments)
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Expert Analysis
Why the Answer Is Correct
Elasticity is the cloud concept that describes a system's ability to automatically provision and release virtual resources based on real-time demand. In the scenario, tournament demand spikes cause a sudden increase in users, and the company needs to deploy more resources during that time. After the tournament, those resources must be reduced back to baseline to lower costs. Elasticity fits perfectly because it enables both scaling out during peak load and scaling back in when demand drops.
Why the Other Options Are Wrong
Scalability is the ability to handle increased workload by adding resources, but it does not inherently include dynamic shrinking to save cost—it is usually more of a planned or long-term capability. Hybrid refers to combining public and private cloud environments, which is not specifically about resource adjustment. Multitenancy is about multiple customers sharing the same physical infrastructure, not about scaling resources based on demand. Therefore, only elasticity addresses the automatic up-and-down behavior described in the question.
Community Comment Notes
Useful community comments support elasticity over scalability. One commenter notes that elasticity means 'automatically adjusts computing resources based on real-time demand, allowing for dynamic scaling up or down to optimize costs and performance.' Another explains that scalability can be seen as 'planning for future events in need of' resources, while elasticity is 'live and dynamic expanding and contracting in real time.' These distinctions align with the correct answer D.
Official Reference
Exam Strategy
On exam day, look for keywords such as 'automatically,' 'return to baseline,' and 'reduce cost'—those words signal elasticity. If the scenario only describes increasing capacity for future growth without shrinking, then scalability is the better choice.