Which option is considered an example of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)?

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a cloud computing service model that provides virtualized computing resources over the internet. This involves delivering hardware resources such as servers, storage, and networking capabilities on a pay-as-you-go basis, allowing businesses to scale their infrastructure as needed without investing in physical hardware.

The correct answer highlights that IaaS is specifically focused on infrastructure provisioning. This means organizations can rent access to servers, virtual machines, routers, load balancers, and other networking equipment, which all form the backbone of IT environments. IaaS offers customers the flexibility to maintain full control over their computing resources while offloading the physical maintenance to the cloud provider.

The other options reflect various other service models but do not align with the core definition of IaaS. Providing productivity software over the internet is typically associated with Software as a Service (SaaS), while a multiuser program that is hosted would also fall under different categories of cloud services, such as platform services. Hosting a database in the cloud can often be considered as Database as a Service (DBaaS) or part of platform services, depending on the way it is offered. These distinctions are critical in understanding the different layers and functionalities within cloud computing models.