CompTIA Cloud+ Practice Test

Which factor is most critical for ensuring high availability in cloud-based services?

1. Load balancing

2. Scalability

3. Data replication

4. Resource monitoring

The correct answer is: Load balancing

Load balancing is a critical factor for ensuring high availability in cloud-based services because it helps distribute workloads across multiple servers or resources. This distribution prevents any single resource from becoming a bottleneck, thereby enhancing performance and minimizing downtime during peak usage periods. By efficiently managing traffic and balancing loads, load balancers ensure that requests are directed to the most capable resources available, thus maintaining service continuity even in the event of a failure of one or more servers. While scalability, data replication, and resource monitoring also contribute to high availability, they serve different purposes. Scalability allows systems to handle increased loads by adding resources, but it doesn't alone ensure that the system remains available during failure. Data replication provides redundancy and improves data availability, but without effective load balancing, traffic could still overwhelm a single point of failure. Resource monitoring is essential for maintaining system health, but it is a reactive measure; high availability requires proactive management of loads to prevent issues from arising in the first place. Hence, load balancing stands out as the key factor in maintaining high availability in cloud environments.