What term describes the ability to dynamically add or remove resources in cloud infrastructure?

The term that describes the ability to dynamically add or remove resources in cloud infrastructure is elasticity. Elasticity refers to the capacity of a cloud environment to scale resources up or down as needed automatically, which is essential for optimizing resource use and cost. This capability allows organizations to efficiently respond to fluctuating workloads; they can provision additional resources during peak times and de-provision them when they are no longer needed, ensuring that they only pay for what they use.

In cloud computing, achieving elasticity is often tied to the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) model, where resources like compute power, storage, and networking can be provisioned or released on demand. This dynamic scaling helps maintain high availability and performance while preventing over-provisioning, which can lead to wasted resources and increased costs.

While other concepts like bursting, pooling, and orchestration are related to resource management in cloud environments, they do not specifically capture the dynamic scaling aspect that elasticity emphasizes. Bursting generally refers to a temporary increase in resource capacity, pooling relates to the aggregation of resources for sharing, and orchestration involves the automated management of multiple services and resources but does not inherently imply the capability to change resource amounts dynamically.