Authors:
Oleksiy Mazhelis
1
;
Pasi Tyrväinen
1
;
Tan Kuan Eeik
2
and
Jari Hiltunen
2
Affiliations:
1
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
;
2
F-Secure, Finland
Keyword(s):
Cloud economics, Total cost of ownership, Infrastructure as a service.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Cloud Computing
;
Cloud Deployment Models: Public/Private/Hybrid Cloud
;
Economics (ROI, Costs, CAPEX/OPEX,…)
;
Fundamentals
;
Platforms and Applications
Abstract:
The deployment of cloud services promises companies a number of benefits, such as faster time to market, improved scalability, lower up-front costs, and lower IT management overhead, among others. However, deploying a cloud-based solution is a complex and often expensive process, which needs to be justified with a systematic analysis of the costs associated with alternative deployment options. This paper introduces a model for assessing the total costs of alternative software deployment options. Relevant cost factors for the model are identified based both on academic and practitioner literature. Assuming virtualized environment, the model employs the concept of a virtual central processing unit (vCPU) to represent a basic system construction block, to which different cost factors are allocated. By listing and aggregating relevant cost factors, the total costs are estimated and can be further used to compare the scenarios of shifting (elements of) software systems to a cloud. The ana
lysis focuses on the case of communication-intensive services, where the network data transfer contributes the most to the overall service cost structure, whereas the contribution of other factors is assumed less significant. The cases of in-house, cloud-based and hybrid infrastructure deployment are compared. The results of the analysis suggest that in communication intensive applications, a single point of service is the most cost-effective, since it benefits from the economy of scale in purchasing communication capacity.
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