Which statement describes a potential drawback of cloud computing?

Which statement describes a potential drawback of cloud computing?

• A. Downtime if providers have technical issues, service cannot be accessed.
• B. It guarantees unlimited free storage.
• C. It removes the need for any data backups.
• D. It eliminates all security risks.

Answer: (A)

Cloud computing relies on external services and the provider’s infrastructure, accessed over the internet. Because you depend on that external system, a outage or technical problem at the provider can make your apps or data unavailable, even if your own devices are fine. This potential downtime is a real drawback because uptime can vary and recovery times affect how quickly you can work again, even with strong redundancies and service agreements. The other ideas aren’t accurate depictors of cloud reality. Unlimited free storage isn’t guaranteed in practice—most cloud plans involve costs or limits. Relying on the cloud does not remove the need for backups; data can be lost, corrupted, or inaccessible if the provider has issues, so you should still back up and have a recovery plan. And security risks aren’t eliminated; while providers implement security measures, there are still risks from misconfigurations, permissions, data breaches, and threats, so security remains a shared responsibility that you must actively manage.

Cloud computing relies on external services and the provider’s infrastructure, accessed over the internet. Because you depend on that external system, a outage or technical problem at the provider can make your apps or data unavailable, even if your own devices are fine. This potential downtime is a real drawback because uptime can vary and recovery times affect how quickly you can work again, even with strong redundancies and service agreements.

The other ideas aren’t accurate depictors of cloud reality. Unlimited free storage isn’t guaranteed in practice—most cloud plans involve costs or limits. Relying on the cloud does not remove the need for backups; data can be lost, corrupted, or inaccessible if the provider has issues, so you should still back up and have a recovery plan. And security risks aren’t eliminated; while providers implement security measures, there are still risks from misconfigurations, permissions, data breaches, and threats, so security remains a shared responsibility that you must actively manage.