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Cloud Computing

 by: raindog308

Cloud computing is certainly the buzzword rage at the moment. There are several diffent flavors of cloud:

• Software-as-a-Service (SAAS): This is the Salesforce or 37signals model. You pay a per-user fee (or per-project, or whatever) and use the provided app on their website.
• Platform-as-a-Service (PAAS): This is Microsoft Azure. You upload an app and run it on their fabric, without wondering about the environment underneath. In practice, you can specify resource levels but the idea is that while you are providing code, you are not managing infrastructure.
• Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IAAS): This is the Amazon EC2 model. You pay for so many servers, bandwidth, disk, etc. and then manage them yourself.

In my opinion, only PAAS is truly new. SAAS is just the 90s "application service provider" model warmed over (and before that, time-sharing systems of the 70s). IAAS is just a VPS. The major advantage to cloud-based virtual servers (IAAS) is their instant-on, pay-by-the-hour model. Traditional VPS providers typically are on a monthly service model.

The downside to IAAS is that the bandwidth is very expensive compared to the typical bundled VPS model.

Let's compare a couple services. Amazon EC2 has a "micro" VPS which give syou 613MB and 1 CPU. Let's compare that with a similar offering from, say, 6sync. At 6sync you can get 512MB RAM, 2 CPU, 20G storage, and 400GB bandwidth for $20/month. The AWS Micro instance only has 1 CPU, but close enough for this illustration.

Let's say you're willing to sign a 1-year prepay agreement with AWS. (heavy utilization, which is the cheapest for always-on). At AWS you would pay:

• $195 prepay + $0.005/hr. At 744 hours a month, that's $8.69/month.
• You will want some disk, so let's take 20GB of EBS at 12 cents/GB/mo. Another $2.40.
• Bandwidth in is free. But bandwidth out is $.10/GB/mo. 400GB/mo is $40/month.

So the total is $51.09, and of course we're at weaker CPU power. The same thing on an AWS Small (1.7G memory) is $70.55/month. The closest thing at 6sync (1.5GB RAM) is $60/mo, but you're getting 60GB disk/800GB bandwidth.

In short, for always-on servers with large bandwidth needs, EC2 is very expensive.

On the other hand, if you just want sometimes-on or have low-bandwidth needs, AWS is excellent because you only pay for what you use.

There is a free tier of AWS where you can get an always-on Micro free for a year.

Cloud IAAS Providers

I have no specific recommendation on these providers. After all, this site isn't called CloudAdvice.com :-) But as a laundry list of places to check out:

• Amazon EC2
• Rackspace Cloud
• Cloud Sigma
• Voxel
• Softlayer
• GoGrid