One of the main characteristics of cloud computing is that resources are elastic. What does that mean?

The concept of elasticity in cloud computing fundamentally refers to the ability to dynamically adjust resources based on the specific demands of users. This means that when customers experience increased demand, they can provision and obtain additional resources seamlessly without any significant delay. Conversely, when the demand decreases, they have the flexibility to scale back and reduce their usage of resources accordingly.

This adaptability is a core feature of cloud services, allowing businesses to optimize operational costs by only paying for the resources they actually use at any given time. Elasticity ensures performance continuity by allowing services to scale up or down based on varying workload requirements.

The other options describe related aspects of cloud resources and their management but do not capture the complete essence of what elasticity entails in terms of both scaling up and down based on demand. The focus on responsive resource allocation in option B is what makes it the most accurate representation of elasticity in cloud computing.