Which architectural pattern in cloud computing allows you to build and run applications and services without managing infrastructure, typically billed based on usage rather than pre-allocated capacity?

Which architectural pattern in cloud computing allows you to build and run applications and services without managing infrastructure, typically billed based on usage rather than pre-allocated capacity?

• A. Serverless
• B. Monolithic
• C. Containerization
• D. PaaS

Answer: (A)

This question tests the serverless pattern in cloud computing. Serverless lets you build and run applications without managing the underlying servers—the cloud provider handles provisioning, scaling, and maintenance automatically. You’re billed only for actual usage, typically by function invocation time and resources consumed, rather than paying for pre-allocated capacity. Think of it as writing small units of code that run in response to events; the platform scales them up or down on demand and you don’t worry about the servers at all. This is different from other patterns: monolithic refers to a single, unified application design, not the deployment model; containerization packages apps into containers but still runs on managed or in-house infrastructure that you may need to size and manage; PaaS provides a managed platform layer, but billing and capacity planning are still tied to usage or allocated resources rather than purely per-use execution.

This question tests the serverless pattern in cloud computing. Serverless lets you build and run applications without managing the underlying servers—the cloud provider handles provisioning, scaling, and maintenance automatically. You’re billed only for actual usage, typically by function invocation time and resources consumed, rather than paying for pre-allocated capacity.

Think of it as writing small units of code that run in response to events; the platform scales them up or down on demand and you don’t worry about the servers at all. This is different from other patterns: monolithic refers to a single, unified application design, not the deployment model; containerization packages apps into containers but still runs on managed or in-house infrastructure that you may need to size and manage; PaaS provides a managed platform layer, but billing and capacity planning are still tied to usage or allocated resources rather than purely per-use execution.