The first thing I did after a closer look at Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), was to check-out its pricing. I have read everywhere that cloud computing is such a cost saver, so I was curious to know how much it would actually cost to run a virtual server at EC2.

At first, prices appeared to be quite low to me. I mean, $0.10 per hour for a server appears to be pretty cheap. My coffee consumption seemed more expensive, or so I thought. But when I calculated its yearly price, it became clear that even I can’t drink that much coffee! The story could end here, if I didn’t stumble upon Amazon’s Simple Monthly Calculator.

I realized that I must have somehow missed the fact that there are other available options other than an hourly rate (virtual server). However, quite a few other cost factors come into play here that you should be aware of. In fact, the “simple calculator” looked extremely complicated to me. I was unfamiliar with many of the terms used, even though, I have read quite a bit about EC2 on Amazon’s web site.

I felt a bit retarded because if I wasn’t able to understand this simplified cost calculation, then how would I go with the version for cloud geeks? Obviously, I was a little left behind because there must be IT pros out there who use this cost calculator every day and know this stuff backwards, however, I have not got the slightest clue about cloud computing.

Googling all the unfamiliar terms didn’t really help. Although I did understand a little more, I still wasn’t able to calculate what an EC2 server would cost me. The only thing that was clear was that I would still be able to afford a cup coffee if I launched an EC2 instance for a short trial period – just to see how much I had to pay after I go.

After playing with EC2 for a day or so, I developed a feeling for the actual costs. Funny thing is that even after a few months of using EC2, I still can’t use the Simple Monthly Calculator. I have no idea how many I/O requests an EBS volume (virtual disk) needs or “other requests” my S3 storage requires each month.

The only thing I am sure of is that many of the cost factors don’t really matter if you just want to run a virtual server in Amazon’s cloud. I think, Amazon somewhat exaggerates a little this only-pay-what-use mantra of cloud computing.

Imagine if a coffee shop started charging you for the number of sips you took of their precious brown liquid. If you drank your cup in one go, you’d pay only half the price because you would be occupying the cup for a much shorter period of time than a customer who enjoys savoring their daily wake-up drug with a lengthy sniffing and sipping ceremony. And if you don’t drink all of the coffee in your cup, you would be entitled to a refund. After all, it would only be fair for you to pay for what you actually used.

Anyway, I can’t really relieve you from trying EC2 in order to develop a feeling on your own how much cloud computing with Amazon would cost you. However, I can tell you what cost factors affect my own server that runs on EC2. This will be the topic of my next post.