Seeing Through The Clouds: The Power of Cloud Transparency
VMware launched its long anticipated public cloud IaaS this week, called the vCloud Hybrid Service (vCHS). The cloud solution comes in two different offerings: Dedicated Cloud, comprised of physically isolated and reserved resources; and Virtual Private Cloud, a traditional multitenant resource model. Currently the service is only available to those in the Early Access program, with general availability expected in Q3 2013 according to the VMware press release.
Pricing for the service varies between the two offerings. For a 1 CPU 1 GB server, the Dedicated Cloud will cost $0.13 per hour, and Virtual Private Cloud will cost $0.045 per hour. Additional variability in pricing can come from discounts on contract term lengths, volume and prepayment of contracts. Both vCHS offerings are subscription based, with the Dedicated Cloud offered at 12 month, 24 month and 36 month terms, and Virtual Private Cloud with 3 month and 12 month terms.
VMware will be stepping on the toes of some of its partners, as many cloud service providers utilize VMware’s virtualization solutions to orchestrate elements of their cloud offerings. While many VMware based providers have added their own proprietary solutions to run their clouds and to differentiate themselves, there’s still the sense that a middleman is being cut out for consumers looking for VMware-based clouds. Existing private cloud customers who run their own internal cloud using VMware solutions will be more inclined to port a portion of their workload into the public cloud, creating a true hybrid cloud solution as the new service is so aptly named. Enterprises utilizing VMware products could be further driven to adopt the public cloud of a trusted vendor, and as they become accustomed to hosting their workloads in a public cloud, they will be more open to try out the other existing cloud providers in the space.
The entry of yet another provider to the growing IaaS space shows that there is still plenty of untapped market-share to scoop up. After all, IaaS is still the fastest growing segment of the overall cloud services market. They are also entering at a time as AWS continues down its warpath, Microsoft Azure reaches the $1B mark, and Google launches their own IaaS. Not to mention, the OpenStack movement continues to gain traction, with more and more providers signing onto the platform.
Google Compute finally enters GA along with the expectation that it will give Amazon a run for its money. Initial reports coming out of beta already have Google’s cloud pegged above AWS in server performance tests. Given Google’s compute footprint for its own operations, it should be able to operate at a comparable scale to AWS, albeit it would take a great deal of time to secure their current number of customers.
Pricing starts off at $0.132 per hour for a standard 1 core 3.75GB instance; only slightly higher than VMware’s new Hybrid Cloud, but with a greater amount of RAM included. Meanwhile a similar size AWS m.1 instance starts lower at $0.12 per hour. Google has also chosen to bill by the minute, with a minimum charge of 10 minutes. Such granular billing will significantly benefit users attuned to cost savings. As providers round up during billing, rounding up to the next minute rather than the next hour is a clear benefit to high volume consumers.
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