We know. Quotecolo is in the business of guiding prospective colocation consumers to the right colocation provider. We know this. But, like any IT interested firm, we would be stupid to not take the time to chat about the all encompassing universe of the Cloud. This said, we have to get some things off our chests concerning the Cloud hosting provider: Please, all you Cloud server solutions and Cloud hosting providers, do us all a favor and determine what the correct price for a specific set of server resources should be. It would be a great help to the market.
Cloud Server Prices for the Consumer
Without mentioning specific names, the prices for Cloud servers are all over the map. With the price of Cloud hosting server all over the map, how are you, as an IT consumer looking to invest in Cloud solutions, to know what the proper price per month for Cloud server resources should be? The answer: currently, there is no real way to know.
So, the question: why the problem? Why are Cloud hosting providers charging wildly different price points for similar web hosting solutions? More specifically, why are Cloud hosting firms charging wildly varying price points for similar hosting resources when those resources are as cheap as they have ever been?
Cloud Server Resources are Cheap
Here is something IT providers won’t say: server resources, RAM, Disk Space, Bandwidth and CPU Cores are as cheap as they have ever been. Like most technologies, over time they become more powerful, smaller and more affordable. Cloud hosting resources are no different. As the consumer, if you were granted access to the inside of Rackspace, Linode or VPS.net, you would encounter multiple conversations between IT sales members and server engineers revolving around how cheap resources have become. What most hosting company won’t tell you is resources aren’t driving up and varying the price of Cloud hosting services. No. That honor belongs to Windows licenses, the hosting environment of choice (the data center) and 24/7/365 IT support (the cost of IT support for web hosting companies will be covered in part two of this series).
Right off the bat, as you know, Cloud servers running Windows operating systems will run you, the consumer more money. The reason for this is Windows OS licensing costs which your provider has to carry. Unlike the open world of Linux, Windows is pay to play. Without question, paying for the Windows OS license on your Cloud server drives up the price you pay on a monthly basis.
The other major factor in determining how much money you are going to pay per month for your Cloud server is the data center in which your Cloud provider operates out of. Before investing in any web hosting solution, you should always ask your provider three things concerning data center hosting:
- Do you own and operate your own data center?
- If you lease space from a data center provider, who is that provider?
- If you lease space from a data center provider, what tier data center are your servers operated out of?
All three of these factors play into your monthly spend. If your Cloud hosting company doesn’t own and operate their own data center, rolled into your cost will be your providers’ monthly data center lease payment. Additionally, the higher tier of data center your provider leases from translates into higher monthly consumer spend.
However, none of this contributes more to how much consumers spend for similar Cloud servers more than 24/7/365 IT support. That topic will be covered in Cloud Hosting Prices Pt. 2.