What is a primary feature of IaaS?

A primary feature of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is that it provides users with complete control over hardware configurations. IaaS allows businesses to rent virtualized computing resources over the internet, which includes servers, storage, and networking capabilities. This level of control empowers users to fully manage their virtual machines and configure them according to their specific requirements, including the operating system, applications, middleware, and network settings.

In this model, the cloud provider takes care of the physical infrastructure, such as the data center, but users are responsible for everything above that layer. This makes IaaS highly flexible and scalable, as organizations can rapidly deploy and modify resources to meet changing demand. The ability to customize hardware configurations helps businesses optimize performance and resource utilization while maintaining control over their computing environment.

The other options involve aspects of cloud service models that do not fully align with the primary characteristics of IaaS. Software updates typically fall under the customer’s responsibility in IaaS setups, and OS management is usually handled by the customer rather than the vendor, which contrasts with Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Software as a Service (SaaS) models. Development tools being provided by the vendor is a characteristic more associated with P