Cloud computing cost debate: which is cheaper for cloud and local it?

This is one of the fundamental questions of cloud computing: Is it cheaper to run workloads on a public cloud than to run workloads in an internal IT environment?

The answer, Charlie Burns, a researcher at Saugatuck Marvell, a consulting firm, is that it might be cheaper.

Depending on the individual user's situation and usage, the answer to this question is varied. However, Burns found some general rules. The answer, he says, depends on the basic question: how do you work in an internal environment?

Large enterprises with an IT department optimized for their business needs may find cloud computing more expensive. However, if a company's workload sometimes requires a lot of computing resources and sometimes requires very little resources, using cloud computing can save a lot of money.

Burns's report says cloud IT infrastructure services can significantly reduce costs for all types and sizes of workloads. However, this cost-saving reality depends largely on the type of workload, the adaptability to cloud computing, and the level of efficiency and optimization of internal IT resources and operations.

The theme of Saugatuck's latest research report is that the optimized internal IT environment is better than static operation, and the cloud is more suitable for dynamic workloads. Other major research firms also support this view.

In a report published last year, Forrester, a market research firm, said that the Pay-as-you-go model of public cloud computing reduced the pressure on users to configure their internal resources too much to handle the peak workload requirements of their internal IT environments. Bartoletti, a Forrester analyst, said in his report that cloud computing can always be a clear winner in cost savings when your application workload changes so much that you need to reserve capacity ahead of time. But the report also warns that cheap is not always better. Concerns about security, performance, and reliability make some IT managers more willing to use their own in-house it.

Saugatuck's Burns says it policymakers should consider several factors when helping to determine whether cloud computing is a more cost-effective option. Although some public cloud computing resources are paid for by usage, many cloud computing resources are preconfigured with virtual machine mirroring specifications. For example, Amazon Web Services has 12 optional virtual machine specifications that can be increased or decreased by hours. However, even with a wider selection of virtual machines, perhaps none is optimized for the workload running in the cloud.

There are solutions to this problem: there is a growing list of third-party tools that can help users optimize their cloud and ensure that the specifications of these clouds are appropriate for their applications. The specification of the customized cloud computing virtual machines provided by many cloud service providers has also been increasing. These providers include dimension Data, Profitbricks, Cloudsigma, and Microsoft Windows Azure.

Next comes the question of hidden costs. The cost of public cloud services is not just the price per hour of virtual machines, or the price per GB of data storage. Data exports and network bandwidth spending are also obvious costs that many customers overlook. For example, in Amazon Web services, uploading data to the cloud is free, but the network resources used to extract and extract data are charged. Cloud service providers basically have to make their services a sticky price,

' Cloud services are ideal for a lot of work, ' said Mike Pearl, a consulting partner at PwC in charge of the agency's cloud sector. Owning a cloud, whether it's a public cloud or a private cloud behind your company's firewall, will ultimately save the enterprise costs because it will be more efficient to use and flex resources. Cloud architecture development has shown the benefits of cost and efficiency. The bigger question is whether the cloud architecture should be built internally or in a public cloud. This is where more analysis is needed.

Forrester Cloud expert James Staten The whole idea in a separate report titled Cloud Computing is not the future of it. In that report, Staten argued that the cloud was actually another tool in the IT Administrator's toolbox, but it was not an ideal tool for others. The key question is knowing when to use the tool and choosing the right platform and provider. However, the cloud does not replace traditional it: traditional it will always be there. (Compiled/Populus euphratica)

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)