NVIDIA Base Command Manager (BCM) is designed to simplify the management of hybrid HPC and AI clusters. Its "Cluster Extension" feature provides an automated, policy-driven mechanism for cloudbursting. When the on-premises Slurm queue has pending jobs and local compute resources are fully utilized, BCM automatically provisions pre-configured nodes in a public cloud like AWS. These cloud nodes are seamlessly joined to the on-premises cluster to run the workloads. Once the jobs are complete, BCM automatically de-provisions the cloud resources, optimizing for cost and efficiency. This automation makes it the most effective method.

A. BCM requires significant pre-configuration to integrate with a cloud provider; it is not a zero-configuration process. Also, its purpose is bursting, not continuous even distribution.

B. Manual provisioning is slow, prone to human error, and defeats the purpose of an automated management platform like BCM, making it highly ineffective for dynamic scaling.

C. A manual switchover to a standby deployment is a disaster recovery or migration strategy, not an efficient, on-demand cloudbursting method for handling peak loads.

1. NVIDIA Base Command Platform User Guide (Version 23.10), Chapter 10: Using a Hybrid On-Premises and Cloud Cluster. The guide states, "When there are jobs in the queue and no on-premises nodes are available, BCM will automatically provision nodes in the cloud to run the jobs. When the jobs are complete, the nodes in the cloud are terminated." This directly supports the automated process described in option D.

2. NVIDIA Base Command Manager Deployment Guide (Version 23.10), Chapter 11: Configuring a Hybrid On-Premises and Cloud Cluster. This chapter details the extensive configuration required for cloud integration (e.g., cloud credentials, network setup, node images), which directly refutes the "without any pre-configuration" claim in option A.