Which two technologies can be utilized to maintain automation in the cloud?

Utilizing containers and serverless architecture effectively supports automation in the cloud due to their inherent design principles that streamline deployment, scaling, and management of applications.

Containers, such as those orchestrated by Kubernetes, encapsulate an application and its dependencies, allowing for consistent environments across development, testing, and production. This creates an efficient workflow that can be automated extensively, facilitating continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) practices.

On the other hand, serverless architecture allows developers to focus on writing code without the need to manage server infrastructure. Instead of provisioning and managing servers, developers can deploy functions that automatically scale in response to incoming requests, significantly simplifying operations and enhancing automation capabilities. The cloud provider handles the necessary resources, meaning that tasks like scaling, load balancing, and availability are managed automatically.

In contrast, other options tend to involve more manual configurations and maintenance efforts, making them less suited for achieving high levels of automation in cloud environments. Mainframe systems and physical hardware can introduce additional complexities and resource constraints that are not ideal in cloud-native contexts where flexibility and automation are key.