Cloud pricing is complicated. It can be difficult to compare cloud prices because providers offer different pricing models, unique discounting options, frequent price cuts, and promises to match prices. We sort through the noise and provide a reality check on which providers have the lowest-cost compute and storage options and in which circumstances.
5. AWS RIs Azure EA Google SUDs
Length of commitment 1 or 3 years 3 years (volume can
increase over time)
No commitment
Range of discount levels 1 yr 24-58%
3 yr 32-75%
15-45% Up to 30% total for running
100% of month
% of time instance must run
to save
Breakeven 25%-76% Depends 25% for first level of discount
Payment terms Choose mix of upfront and
monthly
Varying payment terms to
spread out, defer or ramp
payments
End of month
Other documented programs Volume RI discount starting
at $500K;
Can also consider Spot and
Defined Duration Spot;
Per minute billing; Open
Volume Licensing through
resellers
Sub-hour billing (minimum of
10 minutes)
Comparing Discount Options by Cloud
6. About AWS Reserved Instances (RI)
RI price points and discounts are
different for every region, instance type
and OS
!
Types of Reserved
Instances
No Upfront Partial Upfront All Upfront
Savings for 1-Year
Standard RIs
(Linux)
$0.095
29% discount
$0.083
38% discount
$0.081
39% discount
Savings for 3-Year
Convertible RIs
(Linux)
$0.086
35% discount
$0.075
44% discount
$0.073
45% discount
Savings for 3-Year
Standard RIs
(Linux)
N/A
$0.056
58% discount
$0.052
61% discount
Hours Billed 24 hrs a day 24 hrs a day 24 hrs a day
Based on m3.large with Linux in us-east
On-demand price is $0.133 per hour
7. • 3 year commitment
• Minimum 500 devices/users
• Discount varies (15-45%) with commitment tier
• Add Servers and Cloud Enrollment
• Commit to a tier of usage that drives the discount
• Ability to increase usage over time at same discount
• “True up” each year
About Azure Enterprise Agreements (EA)
8. About Google Sustained Use Discount (SUD)
• No commitment. The more you use an instance family during
the month, the higher the discount.
Usage Level
% of Billing Cycle
Incremental Rate
% of On-Demand Baseline
Sample Rate
n1-standard-1
Total Cost
0-25% 100% $0.050 $9.00
25-50% 80% $0.040 $7.20
50-75% 60% $0.030 $5.40
75-100% 40% $0.020 $3.60
Monthly Cost
at 100% usage
30% discount $25.20
23. Similar Regions With Different Costs
Cloud
Provider
Region Location Instance Size Cheaper Region
Cheaper
Location
% savings
AWS us-west-1 NorCal m3.large us-west-2 Oregon 14%
AWS eu-central-1 Frankfurt m3.large eu-west-1 Ireland 8%
AWS ap-southeast-1 Singapore m3.large ap-southeast-2 Sydney 5%
AWS ap-northeast-1 Tokyo m4.large ap-northeast-2 Seoul 5%
Azure East US Virginia D1v2 East US 2 Virginia 12%
Azure N Central US Illinois D1v2 S or W Central US Texas 12%
Azure Central US Iowa D1v2 S or W Central US Texas 12%
Azure West US California D1v2 West US 2 12%
Azure Canada Central Toronto D1v2 Canada East Quebec City 9%
Azure West Europe Netherlands D1v2 North Europe Ireland 14%
Azure East Asia Hong Kong D1v2 Southeast Asia Singapore 15%
Azure Japan East Tokyo D1v2 Japan West Osaka 13%
Azure Australia East NSW D1v2 Australia Southeast Victoria 7%
Source: RightScaleAs of Oct 25, 2016
28. AWS Azure Google
Name of services S3 Block Blob Storage Cloud Storage
Standard access
within region replication
1000 GB stored
$0.030 /GB-mo
$30.00 per month
$0.020 /GB-mo
$20.00 per month
$0.020 /GB-mo
$20.00 per month
Standard access
across region replication
1000 GB stored
1000 GB transferred
$0.06 /GB-mo
$0.010 /GB transferred
$70.00 per month
$0.050 /GB-mo
$0.020 /GB transferred
$70.00 per month
$0.026 /GB-mo
$0.010 /GB transferred
$36.00 per month
Infrequent access
within region replication
1000 GB stored
$0.0125 /GB-mo
$12.50 per month
$0.010 /GB-mo
$10.00 per month
$0.010 /GB-mo
$10.00 per month
Storage
Source: RightScaleAs of Oct 25, 2016
31. AWS Azure Google
Load Balancers (2) m3.medium
1 vCPU / 3.75 RAM / 4 Disk
D1 v2
1 vCPU / 3.5 RAM / 50 Disk
n1-standard-1
1 vCPU / 3.75 RAM
Application Servers (3) m4.large
2 vCPU / 8 RAM
D2 v2
2 vCPU / 7 RAM / 100 Disk
n1-standard-2
2 vCPU / 7.5 RAM
DB Master + 2 Slaves (3) r3.xlarge
4 vCPU / 30.5 RAM / 80 Disk
D12 v2
4 vCPU / 28 RAM / 200 Disk
n1-highmem-4
4 vCPU / 26 RAM
Storage (500 GB SSD) EBS Page Blob Persistent Disk
Discount 1yr No Upfront RI 30% EA 100% SUD
Use Case: 3-Tier HA/DR Scenario
Source: RightScaleAs of Oct 25, 2016
32. AWS Azure Google
Load Balancers (2) $98.10 $84.82 $73.00
Application Servers (3) $263.52 $254.45 $219.00
DB Master + 2 Slaves (3) $731.28 $667.37 $554.80
Storage (3*500 GB SSD) $150.00 $199.68 $256.16
Discount 1yr No Upfront RI 30% EA 100% SUD
Total Cost On-Demand $1242.90 $1206.31 $1102.96
Total Cost Discounted $859.56 $844.42 $845.72
Use Case: 3-Tier HA/DR Scenario
Source: RightScaleAs of Oct 25, 2016
33. • Lowest cost depends on
• Your use case
• Amount and Type of RIs you are buying on AWS
• Your level of EA discount on Azure
• AWS often provides more flexible options
• Instances with or without local storage, storage with or without PIOPs
• Partial/All Upfront 1yr RIs or 3 yr RIs or can save more
• Azure IS generally matching or beating AWS On-Demand prices
• Your level of EA discount makes a big difference in your discounted costs
• Google makes it dead simple with SUDs
• Is often the lowest cost – 10% lower in our 3-tier use case
• Savings are greater if you are not using RIs or don’t have MSFT EA
Takeaways
34. Monthly Spend Savings Identified
Customer #1 $200,000 44%
Customer #2 $26,000 40%
Customer #3 $46,000 33%
Customer #4 $19,000 34%
Customer #5 $137,000 20%
Opportunity to Optimize May Be Even Larger
Typical Savings Opportunities = 30-45% of spend.
35. • Need help optimizing cloud costs?
• sales@rightscale.com
Q&A