Understanding cost in the cloud
Computing brings more value for your money than it ever has, but there will always be costs associated with computers, and in business, costs usually need a justification. Many people have a misconception about services being cheaper by default in the cloud than running on-premises, but the picture is more complex than you would think at first sight, so we should explain parts of this picture.
Creating estimates for large solutions and becoming an Excel ninja is beyond the scope of this book, but in the cloud, developers are often the first line when someone asks where the money is going.
Most companies can afford to go and buy servers that you can install in your office with specs that will run either a few web apps or a couple of virtual machines. When compared with virtual machines in the cloud, you may very well think that it's just another way of paying for these servers.
In the cloud, there are two primary mechanisms for billing customers...
