The question asks for two characteristics of the public cloud. Based on the community discussion and Azure fundamentals:

• D (metered pricing): Public cloud operates on a pay-as-you-go model where users are charged based on resource consumption (compute, storage, bandwidth). This is a core characteristic of public cloud services.
• E (self-service management): Public cloud providers offer self-service portals (e.g., Azure Portal) that allow users to deploy, manage, and scale resources independently without manual intervention from the provider.

Other options are incorrect:

• A (dedicated hardware): Public cloud typically uses shared infrastructure; while Azure Dedicated Host exists, it is a specific service and not a general characteristic of public cloud.
• B (unsecured connections): Public cloud providers implement secure connections (e.g., encryption, VPNs) by default, so unsecured connections are not a characteristic.
• C (limited storage): Public cloud offers scalable, virtually unlimited storage, so limited storage is not characteristic.

The community consensus strongly supports D and E, with high upvotes and detailed reasoning confirming these as the correct answers.