Which of the following is a key difference between

Solution

Cloud computing involves delivering various services like storage, databases, and applications over the internet, allowing users to access resources on demand. In contrast, distributed computing involves a network of computers that work together to perform tasks as a unified system, sharing computational workloads. In distributed computing, tasks are divided across multiple machines (often geographically separated) that collaborate to complete large-scale processing tasks, whereas cloud computing abstracts resources and delivers them via a service model. Why other options are wrong: a) Cloud computing is location-dependent, while distributed computing is location-independent : Cloud computing is  location-independent since services are accessible from anywhere over the internet. b) Distributed computing emphasizes resource pooling, while cloud computing emphasizes elasticity : Both computing paradigms emphasize resource pooling, and elasticity is a core feature of both. d) Distributed computing relies on virtualization, while cloud computing does not : Virtualization is used heavily in cloud computing; both paradigms use virtualization for resource optimization. e) Cloud computing is used for HPC (High-Performance Computing), whereas distributed computing is not : Both cloud and distributed computing are used for HPC applications, as they both enable large-scale computational processing.