Elastic Computing

Elastic computing refers to the ability to dynamically scale computing resources up and down based on demand. The goal of elastic computing is to optimize resource utilization and only use the computing resources you need at any given time.

Elastic computing is a core characteristic of cloud computing platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP. Rather than purchasing physical servers outright, you can provision virtual machine instances on-demand when you need additional capacity. When demand decreases, you can shut down unneeded instances to stop incurring charges for resources you aren't using. This provides much more flexibility and cost efficiency compared to traditional on-premises infrastructure.

For example, an e-commerce site running on AWS can automatically spin up extra application servers to handle increased traffic during peak sales periods like Black Friday. Then they can shut down those extra servers when traffic dies down to save on costs. Technologies like auto-scaling groups and Kubernetes make it easy to implement elasticity across infrastructure. The cloud provider handles provisioning and deprovisioning behind the scenes in response to defined triggers and metrics.