Refactoring requires the development of new code before an application can be successfully migrated to a cloud provider. It often involves restructuring and optimizing the existing code without changing its external behavior to fit into the new cloud environment.
Application migration strategies and the requirements for each, like refactoring, are included in cloud migration best practices covered in CompTIA Cloud+.

Configuring automatic elasticity is the best approach to manage an e-commerce website that experiences random performance drops due to variable traffic. Automatic elasticity enables the cloud resources to scale up or down automatically based on the current load, ensuring consistent performance even during unexpected traffic surges.
The concept of automatic elasticity is part of the cloud management and technical operations content in the CompTIA Cloud+ curriculum.

Encrypting the data at rest is a crucial security measure to make the data unusable to unauthorized parties. If the object storage data was accessed by an unauthorized party, having the data encrypted would ensure that the data remains confidential and inaccessible without the proper encryption keys, thus mitigating the impact of the breach.
References: CompTIA Cloud+ resources and data security practices

For a biweekly payroll-processing solution that takes a significant amount of time to deploy to each new VM, the best scaling strategy is Scheduled scaling. This strategy involves preparing new instances in advance of when they are needed based on a known schedule, which in this case is the biweekly payroll process. By scheduling the scaling actions in advance, the cloud engineer ensures that the resources are ready when needed without incurring extra costs for running them all the time. References: CompTIA Cloud+ Study Guide (Exam CV0-004) by Todd Montgomery and Stephen Olson