Please don’t consider this an analyst report that gets into the finer details of cloud computing but more of a simple guide to what the various Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud computing options. This is by no means exhaustive but it’s what we consulted on thus far on various projects.

Additional Disclaimer: we partner with 50+ hosting, cloud and colocation firms. I’ll use specific company names here for examples but it doesn’t mean we favor this partner over another.

Introduction

The typical descriptions used by analysts are:

IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service (think traditional hosting firms that offer cloud computing)
PaaS – Platform as a Service (think WordPress blog hosting)
SaaS – Software as a service (think Salesforce)

These terms help, but for me they don’t go deep enough into IaaS and so within IaaS here’s how the world looks to us right now.

#1 Virtualized VMWare Cloud Hosting

This is an offering that’s called cloud computing by many. We’re ok with that, but perhaps more aptly named utility computing. Here’s the offering in a nut shell:

The Hosting company owns servers, bandwidth and storage. They’ve created really large VMWare ESX clusters with lots of automation. You as a client can purchase the following from them in a nice portal that allows quasi realtime changes:

- Virtualized Server Instances on a Server (Dedicated instances, shared Hardware)

- RAM, Processors, GB’s of storage

- Bandwidth

- Virtual firewalls

- Virtual Load balancing

- VPN access

Bonus Services

- Add dedicated servers to virtual servers on the same VPN (let’s call this Hybrid)

- Instances are billed daily rather than monthly

- Auto fail over based on VM Motion or similar technology (trust me – it’s not included always!)

So again, these aren’t really different than what an enterprise could deploy, really large VMWare ESX instances usually on blade servers. The benefits are that you can purchase what you need without the VMWare licensing and hardware. The interface they give you is usually pretty nice as well. Lastly, this isn’t limited to VMWare as the virtualization platform solely, but it’s what we see much of.

#2 Elastic or Elastic Like Computing

This is the closest thing to a utility computing power purchase that you can find. The models vary, and I could find a way to outline the computing choices without some name dropping. The only way to explain this is to outline the pricing methodology.

Amazon:

They charge by the EC2 computing unit x hours you consume. The EC2 computing unit is considered, “One EC2 Compute Unit provides the equivalent CPU capacity of a 1.0-1.2 GHz 2007 Opteron or 2007 Xeon processor” Hard to figure out so cheat and use instance and their online calculator.

GoGrid:

They have a simpler calculator, they will charge you by the RAM hour. Simple formula:

RAM x Hours. They feel that the computing unit is more focused on your RAM needs so they calculate cost as such. For example:

1GB RAM Machine x 720 hours (a full month) x $ 0.19 = $ 136.80 per month
512 MB RAM Machine x 720 hours (a full month) x $ 0.19 = $ 68.40 per month

Joyent

Joyent has a pretty simple model as well, you are able to burst but you have guaranteed resources to the minimum tier you contract for. For instance, you can grab 1GB of RAM, 1/4 CPU (with burst to 8), 15 GB storage and plenty of bandwidth for about $125 per month. You are able to burst but will eventually need move to the next tier of server which is the 2 GB machine. You can check out their pricing calculator here.

#3 – Virtual Private Cloud

The 3rd type of cloud/utility computing is what I see from the likes of Rackspace (although they offer a full cloud offering) in the virtual private cloud. This is similar to #1, except the VMWare ESX server is owned by only one client and the slices are also controlled by the client.

Imagine getting a beefy Dell server, having VMWare ESX installed and slicing the machine into 10 VM’s. The cost calculations look like this:

Monitor & Manage Base ESX Hardware and OS = $ (several hundred per month)
+
Each OS instance on the ESX machine entails another management fee= $ (few hundred per month)

Not a bad model if you need the security, note that they offer the traditional cloud offering as well.

Hope this helps cut through some of the noise, of course if you need additional information reach out to us via email or telephone.