Cloud computing is a complex pricing

In theory, cloud computing provides a fairly simple pattern to consume computing and storage resources. The user needs the capacity, the supplier provides the capacity, the user pays the expense. Users should be able to increase and reduce resources according to their needs and only pay for the capacity they use.

However, according to the survey of the 451 Institute, the cloud computing pricing model is complex, making it difficult for consumers to make purchase decisions, and comparing suppliers into a challenge.

The market has a variety of pricing models, as well as complex terminology, which makes the pricing of cloud computing very unclear. "Cloud computing has promised a simple, usage-based billing model, similar to the use of other utilities such as electricity, but the current reality is totally off the point," the report said. ”

451 found that when it comes to pricing, there is a big difference between suppliers because the market is still in development and there is no standard among suppliers, especially for pricing. "Obviously, this poses a challenge for consumers, who must understand each method and weigh each option when choosing a vendor." In addition, comparing the total price of each vendor application and figuring out the value of some products is a daunting task. ”

Many consumers are starting to use cloud computing to try, not to commit to long-term use. In this case, most cloud service providers offer a paid-for-use cloud service pricing model, which means that when consumers need to use the service, they are able to use the service and only need to pay for the services they use. When users become accustomed to using cloud services, they can use other pricing patterns, such as saving an instance for a longer period of time (for example, up to a year) to reduce costs.

Other pricing methods include the way cloud companies differentiate pricing patterns, including whether virtual machines are in a multi-tenant or proprietary environment, and some cloud companies offer "spot market" pricing in which users can bid for the excess capacity in their vendor's cloud computing. Costs are divided into calculations, storage, and network use, charged on a per-gigabyte basis, and consumers typically do not anticipate network and storage costs. Complicating the problem, 36% of the more than 60 IaaS suppliers evaluated by the 451 Institute did not offer pricing indicators on their websites.

For all these reasons, 451 advises consumers not to simply evaluate suppliers based on price, but also to evaluate them based on functionality. Some consumers can choose their cloud service provider based on the unique or market-leading features that cloud vendors may be able to provide.

To get a better understanding of the complexities of cloud computing pricing, 451 found some ways for cloud vendors to price their services:

On-demand pricing: Consumers pay for the virtual machines they use, based on a fixed unit price.

Retention instance: The consumer pays a certain fee in advance for the service and receives a discount from its use.

Spot Pricing: Resource prices change over time, and customers must bid to access these resources

Prepaid Virtual machine Access: At the beginning, the consumer pays a fixed fee to access an instance of a particular size, during which time the consumer can access the virtual machine indefinitely. This can also be done according to a recurring schedule, which is usually updated every month.

Reusing resource pools: consumers promise to buy a certain amount of resources (number of CPU cores, amount of memory, etc.) in advance

Prepaid consumption: The consumer pays a certain amount at the beginning, and the consumption cost is deducted from the prepaid amount. This can also be done in accordance with repetitive plans.

451 the pros and cons of each approach are listed from the perspective of cloud service providers and consumers. The report does not specify the actual price of cloud computing resources, because real prices often change. But the report shows us some of the pricing patterns of large suppliers, Amazon, Google, Rackspace and Microsoft, the only provider offering on-demand pricing, spot instances, and retention instance pricing.