Rapid Elasticity

Definition - What does Rapid Elasticity mean?

Rapid elasticity is a cloud computing term for scalable provisioning, or the ability to provide scalable services. Experts point to this kind of scalable model as one of five fundamental aspects of cloud computing.

Techopedia explains Rapid Elasticity

Rapid elasticity allows users to automatically request additional space in the cloud or other types of services. Because of the setup of cloud computing services, provisioning can be seamless for the client or user. The fact that providers still need to allocate and de-allocate resources is often irrelevant on the client or user's side. This is a very essential aspect of cloud technology. In a sense, cloud computing resources appear to be infinite or automatically available. That’s much different from older systems, where the limits of storage or memory were immediately visible to a user.

The idea of rapid elasticity does raise some concerns in practical cloud computing situations. Those who administer these kinds of systems explain that many different allocation or de-allocation requests can have an impact on the system. Requests that come from multiple sources can also be demanding and require precise administration. Some of those who provide guidelines for cloud computing recommend tools like monitoring and audit trails to tightly control all of the diverse requests and transactions that happen in the provision of cloud services, and the rapid elasticity that provides so much benefit to those who use the cloud.