This article is written to help everyone who either have an idea or concept and looking cloud services to visualize their concept  or those who want to save money and have better extensibilities for their current running business using Windows Azure cloud service. This is how the cost is calculated in cloud services?

• CPU core are charged per hour basis
  • For example Windows Azure single core cost is 12 cents per hour per core
    • A dual core machine will cost same as having two instances of single core machine
• File Storage (unstructured content)  is charged on monthly basis, with transection and up/down bandwidth consumption
  • Windows Azure Storage is charged 14 cents per Giga Byte per month
  • 10,000 transection cost 1 cents
  • Up/down bandwidth cost range 15-20 cents per Giga byte
• Database Storage (structured content)
  • Database storage is cost the size of database you incur however a price range is giving by cloud service provider
    • For example SQL Azure is charged on various DB sizes
      • 1 GB SQL Azure Database 9.99
      • 5 GB SQL Azure Database 49.95
      • 10GB SQL Azure Database 99.90
  • Database ingress/egress charges are also extra depend on cloud service provider
  • Other Database related functionalities may cost extra depend on cloud service provider
• Other connectivity’s components:
  • Access Control could be charged per connection bases or you will be given X amount of connection for cost Y
  • Web based Cache is charged per size
  • Networking connectivity is charged per connection basis

Note: Most of cloud service don’t charge any ingress/egress cost if cpu cores, storage, databases, everything related with your cloud application, exist within same data center.

So if you are an entrepreneur looking to adopt cloud for your project or looking to migrate your web based application to cloud, your selection could be any of the above however let’s consider following two types:

Type One:

1. CPU Core
2. File System Storage (unstructured content)
3. Database System (structured content)
4. Extra functionalities

Type Two:

1. CPU Core
2. File System Storage (unstructured content)
3. Extra functionalities

Let’s consider you have a concept in your mind which you want to try in Cloud. Consider you would need a quad core machine with 8GB memory to run your application initially. Later you can add multiple virtual machine instances of the same application to expand the service to test scalability. Let’s also consider you would need 10 GB file storage space. To make the application database dependent, let’s consider having a requirement of 10GB database as well. We will calculate how much it will cost to run your application initially and when we test it for scalability for a week how much it would have cost. Because PAAS cloud service provides you virtual machine in cloud you just need your application and supported OS and run time modules to let it run, we will take an example of Windows Azure, as cloud service (PAAS) and see what it will cost to us.

Now let’s consider an example cloud service Windows Azure:

• Azure Core: 12 cents per core so let’s consider having a quad core machine => Cost 48 cents per hour – Total $345.60
• Blob Storage: 14 cents / GB => for 10 GB  - Total $1.40
  • Let’s consider 5,000,000 Transections in a month – Total $5.00
  • Let’s consider 10 GB ingress/egress bandwidth usage => for 20 cents /GB – Total $2.00
• SQL Azure: 10 GB DB => $99.90 / Month – Total $99.90

So for total cost for your application in a month is as below:

Type One:

• 354.60 + 1.40 + 5.00 + 2.00  = $363.00 / month

Type  Two:

• 354.60 + 1.40 + 5.00 + 2.00  + 99.90 = $462.90 / month

Now if you want to test capacity with multiple instances:

• Add 9 more instances (total 10) for the same quad core instance for a week (7 days)
  • Add  $80.64 for a week cost to run 10 virtual machine instance
• Add 50 GB file Storage (unstructured content) for a month (charged monthly)
  • Add $7.00 for month
• Add 50 GB Database storage
  • Add round $500.00 to the above cost
• If you would want to set up open ID authentication
  • $1.99 per 100,000 transactions

As you can understand from above details that if you are an entrepreneurs and looking for cloud to give you head start or want to move you currently running business to cloud. As of now Windows Azure only provides PASS.

Resources:

1. Windows Azure Programmer Resources:http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/learn/get-started/?campaign=getstarted
2. Windows Azure Pricing: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/pricing/
3. Windows Azure Pricing Calculator: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/pricing-calculator/?campaign=vw-calc