The document discusses Amazon Web Services (AWS) and evaluates its business model, highlighting its broad range of cloud services, pricing structure, and potential risks associated with hidden costs and data access concerns. It also examines the competitive landscape for cloud services, particularly focused on education and UK-based infrastructure, suggesting that alternatives can be economically viable. The author concludes that despite AWS's advantages like first-mover status and economies of scale, there is room for specialized academic storage services that meet specific needs.

1. FleSSR Business Models Or: is Amazon beatable?Matt Johnson, Head of Research

2. Overview

3. Overview of Amazon Web ServicesDelivering Cloud solutions since 2006Wide range of services (compute, storage…)Global reach (US, EU, Asia)High demandS3 peaks at 200,000 requests per secondHundreds of thousands of serversEconomies of scale

4. Not all good news…Beware of “hidden” costsParticularly around I/O throughput and bandwidth“Low-value” service levelsNO guarantees on data durability, only availabilityPossible business risksLack of long-term service stability (monthly contracts only)Continuing concern around data and the US Patriot ActNo (auditable) access to infrastructure or operations

5. Why try to compete?To deliver a Cloud service focussed on educationCustomised service modelsFully UK-based infrastructureTo build on sector infrastructureJANET network, UK Access FederationLong-term planning and stabilityWhat about costs?

6. S3 Storage Costs

7. AWS S3 – key features99.999999999% (“eleven 9’s”) durabilityFiles are stored across 3 devicesCopy-on-Write protectionRegular analysis of stored data integrity99.99% availabilityClustered front-end API accessMultiple availability zones

8. AWS S3 – pricing model (February 2011)Amazon pricing model reflects its infrastructure costs:Data stored: disks, storage servers;Network usage: bandwidth and Internet transit;Requests: front-end web/API servers;Sliding-scale pricingData stored: $0.14 p/GB to $0.055 p/GBNetwork usage: $0.15 p/GB to $0.08 p/GBRequests: $0.01 per 1,000 writes, $0.01 per 10,000 reads

9. AWS S3 – price example (for 1 TB of data)Assumes an upload of full dataset at start of yearIncludes updates (uploads) of 1% stored per monthIncludes usage (downloads) of 1% stored per monthAssumes a 1 MB average file sizeAssumes EU (Dublin) datacentre

10. AWS S3 – price example (for 1 TB of data)Data stored: $1,720 p/a Network usage: $130.56 p/a1 TB upload of dataset: $102.361% of 1 TB (p/m) change: $28.20 p/aRequest volumes: $11.32 p/a1.12m writes: $11.200.12m reads: $0.12TOTAL: $1,861.88 p/a (~ £1,160)

11. AWS S3 – assumed storage architectureStorage serviceCommodity mass storage serversno RAID within storage unitsResilience derived from replicated copies of dataSuggests that 30% of raw storage is usable~90% storage efficiency per single storage deviceData is stored across 3 separate devices (90% / 3) = 30%

12. Possible FleSSR Cloud storage infrastructureBroadberry 4U Storage Server95 TB “raw” storage for $30,000 (assume 3-year lifespan)Annual costs: $5,000Power (PUE of 2.0): 35c per hour, $3,000 p/aSupport costs: $2,000 p/aThree-year costs: $45,000 for 95 TB $160 per “raw” TB per year$530 per “usable” TB per year

13. Some considerationsFleSSR pricing model is comparable to AWS:Data stored: as shown previouslyNetwork usage: JANET connectivity benefitsRequest volumes: front-end web/API servers

14. What’s not included in the FleSSR example?Overheads (firewalls, routers, security)Would be factored across storage and compute usageShared services offer economies of scaleManagement softwareAmazon have invested significantly in this area……but OpenStack Storage is OSS and production-readySales/marketing/training overheadsWhen did you last speak to an AWS salesman?

15. ConclusionsAmazon have a great business modelFirst-mover advantage, economies of scale, high marginsThere is a justified case for academic storage servicesSpecific requirements and integration with existing HE servicesPotential for flexible business modelsCosts can be comparable with S3We anticipate similar findings around compute services

16. Thank you!Matt JohnsonHead of Research email: Matt.Johnson@eduserv.org.uk twitter: @mhj_work web: http://labs.eduserv.org.uk/