What technology allows cloud computing to provide services by sharing and allocating resources across multiple users?

The technology that enables cloud computing to provide services through shared and allocated resources across multiple users is virtualization technologies. Virtualization allows physical resources, such as servers, storage, and networks, to be abstracted and segmented into virtual resources. This process enables multiple virtual instances to run on a single physical hardware platform, allowing different users or tenants to access these resources independently while still sharing the underlying infrastructure.

This capability is fundamental in cloud environments because it improves resource utilization, reduces costs, and enhances agility. By leveraging virtualization, cloud service providers can dynamically allocate resources based on demand, ensuring that users receive the necessary computing power without the need for dedicated physical hardware for each user, making efficient use of available resources.

While other options mention different aspects of cloud computing, such as multi-tenant architecture, which is a design principle that allows multiple customers to share the same application instance while keeping their data separate; and distributed computing, which refers to the way in which processing and storage resources are spread across multiple locations, they do not encompass the core mechanism of resource sharing through the abstraction of virtualization.