Which statement best differentiates IaaS and PaaS in cloud computing?

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Multiple Choice

Which statement best differentiates IaaS and PaaS in cloud computing?

The main distinction here is the level of abstraction and what the provider handles versus what you manage. IaaS focuses on infrastructure: you get virtualized hardware resources such as virtual machines, storage, and networking. You control the operating system, runtimes, middleware, and applications you install on those resources, so you have a lot of control but also more responsibility for management, patching, and scaling. PaaS sits one level higher. The provider supplies a platform that includes the runtime environment, middleware, and often built‑in services, so you can deploy and run your application with less setup. The platform manages the underlying OS, runtime updates, scaling, and service provisioning, while you focus on writing code and handling data. So the best statement reflects that IaaS provides virtualized hardware resources, and PaaS provides a platform with runtime and services. The other options either blur the boundary, reverse the roles, or claim there’s no difference, which doesn’t capture how these models distribute responsibility.

The main distinction here is the level of abstraction and what the provider handles versus what you manage. IaaS focuses on infrastructure: you get virtualized hardware resources such as virtual machines, storage, and networking. You control the operating system, runtimes, middleware, and applications you install on those resources, so you have a lot of control but also more responsibility for management, patching, and scaling.

PaaS sits one level higher. The provider supplies a platform that includes the runtime environment, middleware, and often built‑in services, so you can deploy and run your application with less setup. The platform manages the underlying OS, runtime updates, scaling, and service provisioning, while you focus on writing code and handling data.

So the best statement reflects that IaaS provides virtualized hardware resources, and PaaS provides a platform with runtime and services. The other options either blur the boundary, reverse the roles, or claim there’s no difference, which doesn’t capture how these models distribute responsibility.

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