Which of the following metrics provides the time required to finish the initiated or requested task?

Completion time is the metric that accurately represents the total time taken to finish a task that has been initiated or requested. It measures from the moment a task begins until it is fully completed, allowing stakeholders to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of processes and workflows. Understanding completion time is vital for evaluating operational performance, identifying bottlenecks, and improving overall task management.

In contrast, mean-time to switchover deals specifically with the average time it takes to transition from one system or service to another, often in contexts involving redundancy and failover strategies. Response time typically refers to the duration from when a request is made until the first response is received, which can be important for measuring system performance and user experience but does not indicate the total time taken to complete the entire task. Instance startup time focuses on the duration required to initialize and start a cloud instance, which is relevant for assessing infrastructure readiness but does not address the broader context of task completion.