Which design principle of secure cloud computing ensures that the business can resume essential operations in the event of an availability-affecting incident?

The design principle that ensures a business can resume essential operations in the event of an availability-affecting incident is disaster recovery. Disaster recovery encompasses strategies and processes that enable an organization to protect and restore its critical operations and data after a disruptive incident, such as a natural disaster, cyberattack, or system failure. By effectively implementing disaster recovery, a business can minimize downtime and data loss, ensuring continuity of services and operations.

This principle is vital in cloud computing because the reliance on cloud services means that any disruption can have significant impacts on business operations. By having robust disaster recovery plans in place, organizations can swiftly recover from incidents, maintaining their operational integrity and customer trust.

The other options focus on different aspects of security and resource management, but they do not specifically address business continuity following an availability-affecting incident. Resource pooling relates to the efficient distribution of resources across users, access control focuses on managing user permissions and safeguarding sensitive data, while session management deals with maintaining user sessions in web applications. None of these principles specifically ensure recovery and continuity in response to availability issues like disaster recovery does.