AWS prices in Australia compared

With the new Amazon Web Services region opened in Australia there were some comments on Twitter and even articles about higher prices than US. While apparently Australia is struggling with high services prices, the launch of the AWS region should be looked in a slightly wider context than comparison to US.

While prices in Australia are higher than US, it is somewhere in the middle for international AWS prices. EC2 and EBS prices are at the same level as Europe and Singapore, while Japan and Brazil and even US West (California) are more expensive. Transfer starts to be cheaper in Singapore only above 10TB, though here both US and EU are cheaper. S3 storage cost is at the level of US West (California), where only Brazil is more expensive. Overall Australian AWS prices are still in the middle of international AWS regions, while definitely not at the US East level.

But what is probably more important is how AWS compares to other cloud providers in Australia. Australia unfortunately does not have a huge number cloud providers available. By far the most known Australian provider is Ninefold, but there also others available –  OpSource and VPS.NET has their international locations in Australia. There are also other local providers available, like OrionVM or CloudPeople. Unfortunately the last two are not yet supported by Cloudorado, so I’ll focus on current four.

To check how does AWS compare, we will make some sample configurations to check how they compare between providers.

Note: all prices in US dollars.

1.    Standard Small
The first shot for equivalent of Standard Small, which is 1.7 GB RAM and 1 ECU CPU. As in most cases persistence storage is used, we will take 50 GB EBS storage (I/O won’t be estimated here). In such case AWS in fact provides the best option offer. (link to calculation)

2.    Standard Small with twice the CPU
According to our benchmarks, it looks like competition gives stronger CPUs for similar size. The second test assumes twice the CPU power from the first test, with rest or parameters unchanged. Surprisingly – AWS from the lead position goes to the third, with Ninefold and OpSource at virtually the same level. (link to calculation)

3.    Standard Small with 2 TB traffic
The last test assumes again Standard Small equivalent, but this time with a lot of traffic – 2 TB. This time VPS.NET has the price of less than half of AWS price. (link to calculation)

It must be said that the prices of AWS in Australia are in general very competitive. When you play around, AWS is often at the top of the list. It is much, much more often than for other regions. But in all regions the same is true – when considering cloud provider, you should carefully compare cloud computing providers. Depending on your specific requirements like resource ratio, transfer or acceptable commitment duration completely different provider might be best choice. Cloudorado make it very easy to perform such individual comparisons.

A new cloud computing provider for comparison – Stratogen

It has been a while since last noticeable update to the service. We are working hard to deliver you the next version of the service, which will allow you to do even more cloud provider comparisons to support you with data-driven decisions. So keep your eye on Cloudorado. Meanwhile we have added a new provider.

Stratogen is a cloud computing provider based on VM Ware vCloud Director, which makes it perfect if you want to move servers from your VM Ware-based data center to the cloud. It is as easy as exporting OVF and importing it to Stratogen.

Stratogen cloud servers are hosted in tier 3 data centers in both US and UK which also have ISO27001 certification. Stratogen is strongly focusing on network, providing 100% SLA, 10 Gb N+N redundancy. It is using Cisco infrastructure. On top of that, the internet transfer is for free, which makes it an interesting option for network-intensive solutions. Servers are equipped with Intel E5, which delivers a lot of power to your cloud servers.

There is both monthly and hourly pricing available which you can mix depending on your needs. And on top of that there is a 7 day trial period with a generous quota so you can really feel the power of the cloud. And if it wasn’t enough, there is still 30 day money back guarantee. So you have no risk to try it.

So, as usually – compare cloud computing providers and check if Stratogen is the perfect match for your needs.

Two new cloud computing providers: E24Cloud and Ninefold

E24Cloud is a European cloud computing provider with a unique offer of completely free transfer without any limits. While we already got used to free incoming transfer, outgoing was never free, at least not without limits. Seems like it might be great option for bandwidth intensive applications. Moreover there is also possibility to create very big servers, up to 64 GB RAM and 32 cores. So far only 4 providers in our service had so big servers available.

The second provider doubled our list of providers in Australia. Ninefold is probably the best known Australian cloud computing provider. They provide not only cloud servers but also storage solutions.

Maybe our new providers will provide the best offer for you. Check this and compare cloud computing providers.

Time To Reevaluate Reserved Instances

With the latest Amazon Web Services price list update one important aspect has been lost in the whole buzz about dropping cloud prices – the profit point between on-demand and reserved instances has moved significantly. Therefore you should reevaluate reserved instances if you are using on-demand now, or check if you are still using the best suiting reservation option.

It hasn’t been said directly but the clue was in the Amazon’s post “Reserved Instance prices dropping by as much as 37%, and On-Demand instance prices dropping up to 10%”. The relation between on-demand and reserved instance prices was not kept and it means the switch point between them has moved as well.

The point when it is more cost effective to use reserved instances differs between instance types but in general it was about 30% utilization during one year reservation period, which is equivalent to 2630 hours. For standard and high CPU instances it was 31.8% (2786 hours), while 29.2% (2559 hours) for high memory instances. These are the points where you should switch from on-demand to one year light reserved instances in US East

With the new price lists the most affected were standard and high memory instances. The profitability point of the standard reserved instances moved from 31.8% to 19.2% (1683 hours). For high memory instances the change was from 29.2% to 17.5% (1535 hours). High CPU instances had just minor update from 31.8% to 31.3%. Cluster compute and GPU instances did not change the relation, but keep in mind Cluster Compute Eight Extra Large is still the winner with just 13.4% utilization (1178 hours) for the light reserved instance to be profitable. The profitability points for other types of reservations also changed but not that much. The maximum is from 76.9% to 65.2% for high memory medium utilization reserved instance. The heavy utilization changed by 2% at most.

The graph shows the change for High Memory XXL. The upper part shows price of various reservation types according to utilization with previous price list, the lower with current price list. The green areas indicate change of best reservation option – either from on-demand to light reserved instances or to higher reservation option.

But what does it mean to me? If you were below the threshold so far and you use on-demand instances, you should definitely check if now it isn’t cheaper to take light reserved ones. If your server runs for more than 4 hours 12 minutes a day – check reserved instances. If you know your server will run at least 2 months and 1 week all the time, you are again in the reserved instances zone. Similarly for 9 months of 8 hours per business day, or any other pattern in which you would exceed the required number of computing hours. Similarly you should also check if a higher reservation wouldn’t provide a better deal. If you use the cloud computing comparison engine, it will tell if and which reservation is most appropriate in a given case.

To get maximum of the cloud economics you should always check if you use the best option. Currently many users will find profitable to either switch from on-demand to light reserved instances or going to higher reservation level. Check if you are one of them.

Profitability points for 1 year reservations in US East:

	Light Reservation		Medium  Reservation		Heavy Reservation
	Old	New	Old	New	Old	New
Standard	31.8% 2,786h	19.2% 1,683h	74.2% 6,500h	69,3% 6,067h	85.2% 7,466h	83.3% 7,299h
High Memory	29.2% 2,559h	17.5% 1,535h	76.9% 6,740h	65.2% 5,713h	85.2% 7,467h	81.6% 7,150h
High CPU	31.8% 2,786h	31.3% 2,739h	74.2% 6,500h	67.6% 5,925h	85.3% 7,474h	82.8% 7,257h
Cluster Compute Quadruple XL	29.7% 2,599h	29.7% 2,599h	71.8% 6,288h	71.8% 6,288h	85.6% 7,502h	85.6% 7,502h
Cluster Compute Eight XL	13.4% 1,178h	13.4% 1,178h	74.8% 6,550h	74.8% 6,550h	84.9% 7,438h	84.9% 7,438h
Cluster GPU Quadruple XL	31.8% 2,783h	31.8% 2,783h	74.4% 6,519h	74.4% 6,519h	85.3% 7,470h	85.3% 7,470h

Two cloudy days in London

London is definitely one of the cloudiest places in the world. But one week it was even cloudier. There were two cloud events which I attended to – Cloud Expo Europe and CloudCamp.

Cloud Expo Europe is a two-day trade show which took place in Olympia National Hall on January 25-26. This is probably the biggest purely cloud event in Europe. There were about 100 exhibitors and 7 theaters with total of 130 speakers. Not so surprisingly the subject of cloud provider selection was topic of at least 3 talks. Moreover there was significant number of people visiting those talks. This shows how important aspect has been addressed by Cloudorado. One major inconvenience was virtually lack of any sound barrier between exhibit hall and speak theaters. They were just separated by walls as other stands so the noise from exhibit part was definitely disturbing. But this obviously does not lower any value of the speeches themselves.

The show was also a great opportunity to meet multiple people and companies involved in cloud computing. But Cloud Camp, which was held in the evening of the first day in Clerkenwell was a great opportunity meet the cloud computing community and “celebrities” in an informal atmosphere. It starts with a number of 5 minute lightning speeches where many different subjects are virtually just flashed out for further expansion later. The next part is in form of a panel, where anyone can ask a question to experts who were selected from the attendees. So, as there are virtually all involved in cloud computing virtually anyone could speak out their opinions on many cloud related subject. And finally, the most informal part – pizza, beer and talk to anyone.

It was great both events had synchronized schedules so that you can participate in both during a single visit. It is really a great opportunity get in touch with the cloud. I’ll definitely be back next time.