Optimizing cloud deployments requires balancing cost and performance. Autoscaling policies are fundamental to this balance, as they dynamically adjust compute resources to match workload demand. This prevents over-provisioning (saving costs during low traffic) and under-provisioning (maintaining performance during high traffic). Region selection is a critical initial decision that directly impacts both price, as costs vary between geographic regions, and performance, due to network latency for end-users. Prioritizing these two factors establishes a cost-effective and performant foundation for any cloud environment.

C. Tape library integration: This is primarily for long-term, low-cost archival storage and disaster recovery, not for optimizing the price-performance of active, running applications and services.

D. Manual provisioning: This approach is static and inefficient. It often leads to significant over-provisioning to handle peak loads, resulting in high costs, or under-provisioning, which causes poor performance.

1. AWS Well-Architected Framework, Performance Efficiency Pillar (Page 5): "Select the best performing architecture... A key decision is the proximity of your service to its users. Deploying your service in AWS Regions that are close to your users will reduce latency." This supports the importance of Region selection (B) for performance.

2. AWS Well-Architected Framework, Cost Optimization Pillar (Page 5): "A primary principle of cost optimization in the cloud is to pay only for what you need... Use autoscaling to match the level of provisioned resources to the level of demand." This directly supports the prioritization of Autoscaling policies (A) for cost management.

3. Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework - Cost optimization checklist: "Dynamically allocate and deallocate resources to match your performance needs. Use autoscaling features to add and remove resources based on triggers." This reinforces the critical role of Autoscaling policies (A).

4. HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Enterprise - Data Sheet (c07942329): "Pay for what you use... with the ability to scale up and down as needed." This document highlights the pay-per-use model, a core benefit enabled by dynamic scaling capabilities like Autoscaling (A), as a primary value proposition for optimizing cloud economics.