CompTIA Cloud+ (CV0-003) — Question 275

To support a marketing campaign last month, the cloud administrator manually provisioned additional web servers to the IaaS-hosted web farm to handle an expected increase in web traffic. However, when reviewing the monthly bill for cloud usage, the administrator noticed the servers were still provisioned, but overall utilization was low and did not exceed 20%. The cloud administrator wants to improve the utilization and reduce costs while also being prepared for another campaign that is supposed to start next week. Which of the following is the best option for the cloud administrator to implement?

Answer options

• A. Switch to another public IaaS provider with lower per-hour compute costs.
• B. Increase the CPU and memory resources on half of the servers and shut down the others.
• C. Hire a third-party managed services provider to host the marketing website.
• D. Configure the web server farm to use autoscaling with a minimum and maximum size.

Correct answer: D

Explanation

The best option is D because configuring autoscaling allows the cloud administrator to automatically adjust the number of web servers based on current demand, improving utilization and reducing costs during low traffic periods. Option A does not address the current issue of low utilization and would only shift costs elsewhere. Option B does not solve the problem of underutilization as it still maintains servers that are not fully utilized. Option C introduces additional complexity and cost without addressing the immediate need for efficient resource management.