Elasticity and scalability are two key concepts in cloud computing that allow businesses to adjust their computing resources in real-time based on their changing needs. These concepts are fundamental to the cloud computing paradigm and are essential for achieving cost savings, high availability, and optimal performance.
Elasticity
Elasticity is the ability of a cloud computing environment to automatically adjust its resources in response to changes in demand. It means that the infrastructure can easily expand or contract to meet the changing needs of the applications running on it. Elasticity ensures that the infrastructure is always right-sized to handle the workload and that resources are not wasted when demand is low.
Scalability
Scalability refers to the ability of a cloud computing environment to easily add or remove computing resources to meet the growing demands of an application. Scalability is about ensuring that the infrastructure can handle increasing levels of traffic or workloads without suffering from performance degradation or downtime.
The main difference between elasticity and scalability is that elasticity is about adjusting resources based on the current workload, while scalability is about adding or removing resources to handle future demand.