Despite the growing interest in the concept of cloud computing, the ability to acquire computing resources without purchasing hardware is still a novel idea to many users. Whether with desktops or mainframes, users remain comfortable with buying a computer outright, and using it as much or as little as they want after their initial expenditure. One problem with this pay-for-hardware pricing model, though, is that users can face significant challenges when differences in demand appear over extended periods of time. For example, if a hospital wanted to perform large scale testing of a new database for their existing electronic medical records, they would neither want to replace their current system outright, for fear of mistakes, nor would they want to amass large capital expenditures for transient use. Pay-as-you-go cloud services from third party suppliers offer one solution to this challenge, by shifting costs from capital expenditures to operating expenditures.
Earlier this month, VMware announced vCloud Express, a program that allows third-party service providers to deliver VMware-branded Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). This pay-as-you-go infrastructure is designed to give users compatibility between their internal environments based on VMware vSphere, and external services that use VMware virtualization, i.e. based on VMware virtual infrastructure. By using tools based on VMware’s vCloud API, users will be able to manage infrastructure hosted on vCloud Express with the same interface and processes that they use to manage their internal virtual infrastructure based on vSphere. By delivering compatibility in terms of operations and management, VMware hopes to enable users to easily move virtualized workloads between internal and external infrastructure, while also enabling them to choose between third-party cloud suppliers based on price, service levels, and features.
Five service providers have announced vCloud Express services, including Terremark, Hosting.com, BlueLock in the U.S.; Logica in Europe; and Melbourne IT, which claims to give customers the "first true cloud experience in Australia." Each of these suppliers is allowed to set their own options such as price, OS templates and internal infrastructure. The availability of multiple, operationally-equivalent IaaS offerings provides a glimpse of how competition for utility computing services could appear in the future.
From a pricing standpoint, the U.S.-based services are roughly equivalent at low-end configurations, but premiums start to appear with larger configurations (see chart below). Terremark, BlueLock and Hosting.com all charge roughly the same for memory configurations of 1 and 2 GB, but at configurations of 4 GB and higher, Terremark charges more than its competitors, with the premium growing on larger 4-socket servers. However, Terremark’s offering has some advantages over the other service providers. For example, Terremark can provide servers with up to eight sockets, while BlueLock and Hosting.com currently support a maximum of four sockets. While all companies offer at least one version of Windows and Linux, Terremark supports the broadest range of OS configurations, covering over 450 different versions of Windows and Linux. Terremark offers more memory options than the other US suppliers. In addition to supporting the vCloud API for managing systems, Terremark also offers its own GUI for non-programmers.
vCloud Express Services (US): Hourly Prices
By offering compatibility between internal VMware environments and VMware-based third party cloud offerings (which are generically branded as VMware Virtualized services), VMware hopes that it can offer its customers a reliable transition to public cloud computing infrastructures when they are ready. With vCloud Express, VMware particularly hopes to get a foothold with small and medium-sized businesses that choose to host infrastructure externally. As these smaller organizations grow, they will gradually entrust increasingly critical workloads to cloud providers. These organizations may hope to lower their costs by benefitting from a competitive market for a common class of servers. However, the service providers will compete on more than just price, and will attempt differentiate with a variety of added value.
The cloud computing industry is in a nascent stage, with not many established customers, so these newcomers backing vCloud Express could seed a new generation of IT users who are comfortable shifting between private and public infrastructure. Most of the vCloud Express offerings are still at the beta stage, and it is too early to tell if they can seriously compete with Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing services. However, the promise that vCloud Express will bring new players to the pay-as-you-go market with the backing of the powerful VMware product line is exciting, and it will only improve the current utility-pricing choices. This coupling of VMware’s market share leadership in virtualization with companies that currently offer other types of cloud computing is the perfect combination to offer alternatives to EC2.
Comments