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I think many of these cloud offerings are shockingly expensive. The first time I heard what we paid for the Ubuntu images we have on Azure, I though my manager

I think many of these cloud offerings are shockingly expensive. The first time I heard what we paid for the Ubuntu images we have on Azure, I though my manager was joking...

gruez 6y ago
Aren't ubuntu images free to use? Or are you talking about the ones with support entitlements?
- bjarneh 6y ago
  We pay a monthly cost for every Ubuntu VM that we have. Perhaps there is some "get X free VM's" included with a certain Office365 license or something; but ours are certainly not free. You could probably make the exact same calculation as they have done here. How long can rent an Ubuntu VM in Azure for the price of buying actual hardware running Ubuntu etc.
  - gruez 6y ago
    I don't doubt that the VMs themselves cost money. I only doubt that the ubuntu images cost money. In other words, the cost for the VMs should be the same if you installed debian (or whatever home rolled distro).
    - bjarneh 6y ago
      Yes, no additional cost to install Ubuntu on the VM's.
dtech 6y ago
When you compare raw hardware costs vs VM costs it seems ludicrous. But it's more reasonable than you expect. First if you commit for 1 or 3 year (like you'd do with hardware) you can get 30-70% discounts already. Then you have to factor in costs of: replacement hardware, energy, cooling, networking. But the big one is people. Someone has to install all that hardware, fix it if it breaks etc. They provide everything like that for you. If you are tiny (<10 servers located in your business building) it can be worthwhile because it's just a side job of someone you need anyway. After that you need quite a large scale for it to become really attractive.
- bjarneh 6y ago
  > But it's more reasonable than you expect. If it was reasonable, there would not be other companies providing the exact same product at a fraction of the cost: https://www.linode.com/pricing/ https://www.linode.com/pricing/

I think many of these cloud offerings are shockingly expensive. The first time I heard what we paid for the Ubuntu images we have on Azure, I though my manager was joking...

gruez 6y ago

Aren't ubuntu images free to use? Or are you talking about the ones with support entitlements?

bjarneh 6y ago
We pay a monthly cost for every Ubuntu VM that we have. Perhaps there is some "get X free VM's" included with a certain Office365 license or something; but ours are certainly not free. You could probably make the exact same calculation as they have done here. How long can rent an Ubuntu VM in Azure for the price of buying actual hardware running Ubuntu etc.
- gruez 6y ago
  I don't doubt that the VMs themselves cost money. I only doubt that the ubuntu images cost money. In other words, the cost for the VMs should be the same if you installed debian (or whatever home rolled distro).
  - bjarneh 6y ago
    Yes, no additional cost to install Ubuntu on the VM's.

dtech 6y ago

When you compare raw hardware costs vs VM costs it seems ludicrous. But it's more reasonable than you expect. First if you commit for 1 or 3 year (like you'd do with hardware) you can get 30-70% discounts already. Then you have to factor in costs of: replacement hardware, energy, cooling, networking. But the big one is people. Someone has to install all that hardware, fix it if it breaks etc. They provide everything like that for you. If you are tiny (<10 servers located in your business building) it can be worthwhile because it's just a side job of someone you need anyway. After that you need quite a large scale for it to become really attractive.

bjarneh 6y ago
> But it's more reasonable than you expect. If it was reasonable, there would not be other companies providing the exact same product at a fraction of the cost: https://www.linode.com/pricing/ https://www.linode.com/pricing/