

Ec2 On-Demand vs Reserved Pricing (graph included) - egonzalez
http://edwin.io/ec2-reserved-vs-on-demand-pricing

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lsb
Here's something interesting about the pricing structure: if you get a spot
instance, and bid like $5/hr max for it, you won't get overbid for it, and
your hourly cost is going to be far less than outright buying the reserve
instance itself if you need it longterm.

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cperciva
_you won't get overbid for it_

... unless the people who bought reserved instances for disaster recovery
decide to start using them. If one company's disaster recovery plans kick in,
it's quite likely that many other companies' disaster recovery plans will kick
in at the same time -- and spot instances will suddenly become very scarce as
they are reallocated to the people who paid to reserve them.

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TorKlingberg
This graph is very confusing. On the X-axis are dates, and on the Y-axis are
some unspecified numbers, perhaps price.

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egonzalez
X-axis = dates (Jan 1st - Dec 31st)

Y-axis = price

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TorKlingberg
So all the On-Demand instances were free on Jan 10, and have been getting more
expensive linearly since then? I doubt it.

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egonzalez
If you zoom in to see Jan 10th 2010 you will see the following prices

<http://twitpic.com/1m6vxi>

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colonel_j
So x-axis is actually days of usage, not absolute dates

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egonzalez
Correct day 1 to day 365.

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patrickgzill
I realize that many here need to plan for extremely bursty or massively
scalable setups, but for 99% of applications AWS seems lousy in terms of SLA
and overpriced for what you get.

You can get premium colocation for a 1U or 2U server for $200 a month, ie.
$2400 per year.

This premium colocation comes with phone and email support for most basic
Linux and networking tasks, 100% network and power uptime guarantees, etc.

AWS does not offer much support unless you pay more, and as we have seen in
the past, they do have outages.

A server from Aberdeeninc.com (price for 1 server without negotiation or
shopping around), far superior to an xlarge, is about $3100 including shipping
(Stirling 169 1U, 2x 5504 CPUs (8 cores), 24GB RAM, 2x 500GB Seagate 32MB
cache).

Meanwhile an xlarge RS will cost almost $4k per year.

So, over 3 years: AWS xlarge: $12K

Premium colo + 1U server: $7200 plus $3100 = $10.3K .

And that is for just one instance.

I would be very interested in hearing real-world testing results of what an
AWS compute unit actually ends up being comparable to vs. a relatively modern
CPU like the quad core Opterons and Xeons.

~~~
egonzalez
The colo setup requires an up front cost and a commitment to the hardware.
With AWS it's less about finding an exact hardware match and more about
managing resources.

There are pros and cons to each. I've worked in the hosting/colo space for
many years. I think there's a time in a companies infrastructure and scaling
needs where being able to customize your hardware and software is the right
decision. I see a hybrid future, actually it's already here.

AWS Pros: I can fail over to another datacenter pretty quickly (depends on how
you manage your infrastructure). With colo, that's not possible without more
cost.

I can quickly spin up or down instances as needed (based on traffic patterns).
To have a standby server or servers at a colo = $$$ , or maybe have the
dedicated server provider boot up a few of their dedicated servers ?

s3 (tons of storage) - If you've built-out clustered storage systems, you know
how expensive (hardware/management) that can be.

Ping,Pipe,Power - They've been managing data centers for many years and have
the experience to keep the lights on.

AWS Cons:

Needs better support.

Price: They're priced above a usual VPS, but you need to consider the
flexibility they provide.(API,ZONES)

I think for startups aws/slicehost/linode can work.

