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It is strange that bandwidth/traffic/egress seems to be an afterthought in this post and I think the numbers in the linked blog post are wrong anyway. Bandwidt

It is strange that bandwidth/traffic/egress seems to be an afterthought in this post and I think the numbers in the linked blog post are wrong anyway. Bandwidth out of AWS is at best 9 cents per gigabyte, which is HUGE and for many applications the primary cost. Indeed when I saw the title of the post I thought "there's only one number you need to know with AWS, it's 9 cents per gigabyte". Please correct me if I am wrong. I went looking to find the correct number but as always it is hard to find the exact prices.

count 4y ago
I've moved probably thousands? of workloads to AWS in the last decade. Not a single one of them has been 'internet facing' or pushed much/any data out of the environment. Average bandwidth bills are <$1k/yr. I'd guess most of AWS's customers aren't....that kind of shop. If you are, that's definitely something to be aware of though, no doubt.
- JamesSwift 4y ago
  In every single AWS setup I've worked with (~10), bandwidth has been a not-insignificant portion of the cost. And its been surprising each time for anyone looking at the bill that bandwidth was as much as it was.
kkielhofner 4y ago
I still maintain bandwidth costs are the most poorly understood in the current CTO/CIO/Dev generation. The "cloud native" generation has (of course) never purchased bandwidth (as in circuits, cross connects, etc) and the result is "Well, AWS charges $0.09/GB so that's what it costs". I wouldn't be surprised if AWS is capitalizing on this blind spot and offering many services as loss-leaders knowing their 100x markup (or whatever) on bandwidth more than makes up for it.
randomtwiddler 4y ago
Pricing is different for large customers, they can get special discounted rates. For the small guys, that's the ballpark as I understand it also. And I agree with you. That's the #1 item when building online infrastructure.

count 4y ago

I've moved probably thousands? of workloads to AWS in the last decade. Not a single one of them has been 'internet facing' or pushed much/any data out of the environment. Average bandwidth bills are <$1k/yr. I'd guess most of AWS's customers aren't....that kind of shop. If you are, that's definitely something to be aware of though, no doubt.

JamesSwift 4y ago
In every single AWS setup I've worked with (~10), bandwidth has been a not-insignificant portion of the cost. And its been surprising each time for anyone looking at the bill that bandwidth was as much as it was.

kkielhofner 4y ago

I still maintain bandwidth costs are the most poorly understood in the current CTO/CIO/Dev generation. The "cloud native" generation has (of course) never purchased bandwidth (as in circuits, cross connects, etc) and the result is "Well, AWS charges $0.09/GB so that's what it costs". I wouldn't be surprised if AWS is capitalizing on this blind spot and offering many services as loss-leaders knowing their 100x markup (or whatever) on bandwidth more than makes up for it.

randomtwiddler 4y ago

Pricing is different for large customers, they can get special discounted rates. For the small guys, that's the ballpark as I understand it also. And I agree with you. That's the #1 item when building online infrastructure.