• Software as a service (SaaS)
• Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
• Platform as a service (PaaS)
• Desktop as a service (DaaS)

So every software vendor that sells their software with a web interface suddenly becomes a Cloud operator, and taps in to the Cloud marketing buzz. Other companies are more careful and think about what they call a cloud and what the don’t call a cloud. IBM for example a has a policy where every initiative that wants to use ‘Cloud’ as a marketing sentence has to comply to the following principles:

• A form of self service
• Some element of virtualization and scalability
• Worldwide availability
• A Pay-as-you-use policy

Also the Open Cloud Manifesto establishes a core set of principles to ensure that organizations will have freedom of choice, flexibility, and openness as they take advantage of cloud computing. While cloud computing has the potential to have a positive impact on organizations, there is also potential for lock-in and lost flexibility if appropriate open standards are not identified and adopted.

• 1 CPU core
• 2 GB RAM
• 80 GB diskspace, 40GB used
• Linux OS
• 100GB datatraffic

As you can see, these are not too fancy specs, but sufficient for a development webserver or for use as a small production webserver.

Not all cloud and vps offers allow you to specify the exact requirements that you need. So in the comparison below, I’ve included where the server specifications differ from the base-line specs.

cloud

Windows Azure

• Compute
  • Small instance (default): € 0.0852 per hour
  • Medium instance: € 0.1703 per hour
  • Large instance: € 0.3405 per hour
  • Extra large instance: € 0.6809 per hour
• Storage
  • € 0.1064 per GB stored per month
  • € 0.0071 per 10,000 storage transactions
• Content Delivery Network (CDN)
  • Service currently available as a Community Technology Preview (CTP) at no charge

SQL Azure

• Web Edition – Up to 1 GB relational database
  • € 7.085 per database per month
• Business Edition – Up to 10 GB relational database
  • € 70.913 per database per month

AppFabric

• Access Control
  • € 1.4114 per 100,000 transactions*
• Service Bus
  • € 2.8298 per connection on a “pay-as-you-go” basis*
  • Pack of 5 connections € 7.0566*
  • Pack of 25 connections € 35.2827*
  • Pack of 100 connections € 141.1308*
  • Pack of 500 connections € 705.654*

Data Transfers

• North America and Europe regions
  • € 0.071 per GB in
  • € 0.1064 per GB out
• Asia Pacific Region
  • € 0.2128 per GB in
  • € 0.3192 per GB out
• Inbound data transfers during off-peak times through June 30, 2010 are at no charge.  Prices revert to our normal inbound data transfer rates after June 30, 2010.