Elastic infrastructures deliver preconfigured virtual machine servers, storage services, and network connectivity using a self-service interface. This type of infrastructure provides the proper amount of dynamically-adjusted IT resources necessary for a stated level of service. As the core capability of an IaaS service, this runtime infrastructure supports dynamic provisioning and de-provisioning of servers, disk storage, and network connectivity. Real-time monitoring of resource utilization is provided to enable traceable billing and automation of all associated management tasks.