Many application workloads are characterized by resource use that varies over time. Usage peaks can vary depending on the time of the day, week, or month, and outside events. Even a big sport game or an online sale can bring usage spikes. With traditional, on-premises technologies, IT departments typically provisioned enough capacity to manage worst-case scenarios. This approach to scalability can leave a significant amount of underutilized resources in the data centers, most of the time—and inefficiency that can impact overall costs. Cloud computing promises answers to such inefficiencies. In the cloud, you can balance costs and performance by deploying new resources when needed and shrinking them during slack periods. This elastic approach matches demand and capacity.