Which cloud model is owned by a cloud vendor and accessible to the general public or a large industry group?

• A. SaaS
• B. Private cloud
• C. Public cloud
• D. Community cloud

Answer: (C)

The key idea is the deployment model defined by ownership and access. A public cloud is owned and operated by a cloud provider, who makes the infrastructure available to the general public or to a large industry group over the internet. Customers share the same pool of resources in a multi-tenant environment and typically pay only for what they use. This setup contrasts with other models: private clouds are dedicated to a single organization (not broadly accessible), community clouds are shared by a defined group with common concerns, and SaaS describes a software delivery model rather than how the cloud is deployed or who can use it. Public cloud examples include AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.