Cloud Computing is currently receiving significant praise as a magic cure all solution across the internet.  While it is undoubtedly true that there are significant benefits to Cloud Computing in many situations, it should be noted that the decision to use Cloud Computing must still be analyzed in each situation.  To illustrate this point, this case study will examine a scenario common to Small Business.

For this scenario the basic requirements of a small web application with relatively modest requirements for CPU usage, storage, and bandwidth are considered. This example assumes requirements for a Microsoft .NET application on a single modestly provisioned windows server.

Pricing

Two options for hosting our small web application in the cloud:

1. Microsoft Azure (Due out late 2009)

2. Amazon Elastic Comput Cloud with Elastic Block Storage (Amazon EC2-EBS) - Small Windows Instance

For a baseline, the more traditional option of hosting the web application on a dedicated server provided by ServerBeach (by Peer1). ServerBeach currently charges $99 for a basic server with 160GB of storage space running Microsoft Windows Web Edition.

The costs of the two Cloud Computing options are as follows:

Usage assumptions are made and applied in the following cost calculation table:

Results

No immediate monthly cost savings will be achieved by hosting this application using Cloud Computing resources.  For a discussion of some scenarios where Cloud Computing makes sense, see the article Specific Benefits of Cloud Computing.