Which of the following characterizes cloud services?

Resource scalability is a defining characteristic of cloud services. This means that organizations can easily adjust their resource usage based on demand, scaling up or down as needed. This flexibility is especially valuable for businesses that experience fluctuating workloads, allowing them to efficiently manage costs by only paying for what they use.

In cloud computing, resources such as storage, computing power, and applications can be provisioned and de-provisioned rapidly, facilitating a more agile response to changing business needs. This feature allows organizations to expand their IT capabilities quickly without the necessity of significant upfront investments in physical hardware.

The other options do not align with the core benefits of cloud computing. For instance, limited access contradicts the principle of cloud services, as they typically provide broad access from various locations and devices. Permanent ownership of infrastructure is not a feature of cloud services, where resources are rented rather than owned outright. Lastly, while managing cloud resources can be complex, one of the key advantages of cloud services is that providers often offer tools and support to simplify management tasks. Thus, scalability is a clear and essential characteristic of cloud services.