What role do cloud-based services play in data infrastructure management?

Cloud-based services significantly reduce the need for infrastructure management, making option B the correct choice. These services abstract much of the complexity involved with maintaining and managing physical hardware, allowing organizations to focus on higher-level tasks such as data analysis and application development.

By leveraging cloud solutions, organizations can automatically scale resources up or down based on demand, ensuring that they only use and pay for what they need. This elasticity is a key benefit of cloud infrastructure, as it enhances operational efficiency and reduces overhead costs associated with maintaining on-premise systems.

In a cloud environment, many infrastructure management tasks, such as software updates, security patches, and system monitoring, are handled by the cloud provider. This not only frees up valuable IT resources but also ensures that the infrastructure is always up-to-date with the latest technologies and protections, further minimizing the management burden.

The other options presented do not align with the benefits of cloud-based services. Extensive manual updates are not a norm with cloud solutions, as they are typically automated, while scalability in cloud environments is often extensive, not limited. Additionally, cloud services do not require on-site hardware, as they operate in a virtualized environment hosted by the provider. These attributes collectively reinforce why cloud-based services streamline data infrastructure management.