A company wants to deploy new compute resources efficiently through automation. Which of the following is a key success factor to achieve automation?

Deploying virtualized resources to the cloud is a deployment destination or method, not a prerequisite or enabler of the automation process itself.

Maintaining surplus compute resources addresses capacity planning but has no bearing on whether deployment processes can be effectively automated.

Deferring security testing to the end of the pipeline reduces security coverage and contradicts DevSecOps principles, and does not contribute to automation success.

Automation tools execute predefined steps against documented procedures - without established standard changes, there is no consistent template for the automation to replicate. Standardization eliminates variability, making deployment processes scriptable and enabling reliable, repeatable compute provisioning at scale.