Tag: microsoft azure

Here is a comparison of Windows Azure instances vs Amazon compute instances

Compute Instance Sizes:

Developers have the ability to choose the size of VMs to run their application based on the applications resource requirements. Windows Azure compute instances come in four unique sizes to enable complex applications and workloads.

Compute Instance Size	CPU	Memory	Instance Storage	I/O Performance
Small	1.6 GHz	1.75 GB	225 GB	Moderate
Medium	2 x 1.6 GHz	3.5 GB	490 GB	High
Large	4 x 1.6 GHz	7 GB	1,000 GB	High
Extra large	8 x 1.6 GHz	14 GB	2,040 GB	High

Standard Rates:

Windows Azure

• Compute
  • Small instance (default): $0.12 per hour
  • Medium instance: $0.24 per hour
  • Large instance: $0.48 per hour
  • Extra large instance: $0.96 per hour
• Storage
  • $0.15 per GB stored per month
  • $0.01 per 10,000 storage transactions
• Content Delivery Network (CDN)
  • $0.15 per GB for data transfers from European and North American locations*
  • $0.20 per GB for data transfers from other locations*
  • $0.01 per 10,000 transactions*

Source –

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/popup/popup.aspx?lang=en&locale=en-US&offer=MS-AZR-0001P

and

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/windowsazure/

Amazon EC2 has more options though——————————-

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/

Standard On-Demand Instances	Linux/UNIX Usage	Windows Usage
Small (Default)	$0.085 per hour	$0.12 per hour
Large	$0.34 per hour	$0.48 per hour
Extra Large	$0.68 per hour	$0.96 per hour
Micro On-Demand Instances	Linux/UNIX Usage	Windows Usage
Micro	$0.02 per hour	$0.03 per hour
High-Memory On-Demand Instances
Extra Large	$0.50 per hour	$0.62 per hour
Double Extra Large	$1.00 per hour	$1.24 per hour
Quadruple Extra Large	$2.00 per hour	$2.48 per hour
High-CPU On-Demand Instances
Medium	$0.17 per hour	$0.29 per hour
Extra Large	$0.68 per hour	$1.16 per hour
Cluster Compute Instances
Quadruple Extra Large	$1.60 per hour	N/A*
* Windows is not currently available for Cluster Compute Instances.

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/

Standard Instances

Instances of this family are well suited for most applications.

Small Instance – default*

1.7 GB memory
1 EC2 Compute Unit (1 virtual core with 1 EC2 Compute Unit)
160 GB instance storage (150 GB plus 10 GB root partition)
32-bit platform
I/O Performance: Moderate
API name: m1.small

Large Instance

7.5 GB memory
4 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each)
850 GB instance storage (2×420 GB plus 10 GB root partition)
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: m1.large

Extra Large Instance

15 GB memory
8 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each)
1,690 GB instance storage (4×420 GB plus 10 GB root partition)
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: m1.xlarge

Micro Instances

Instances of this family provide a small amount of consistent CPU resources and allow you to burst CPUcapacity when additional cycles are available. They are well suited for lower throughput applications and web sites that consume significant compute cycles periodically.

Micro Instance

613 MB memory
Up to 2 EC2 Compute Units (for short periodic bursts)
EBS storage only
32-bit or 64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Low
API name: t1.micro

High-Memory Instances

Instances of this family offer large memory sizes for high throughput applications, including database and memory caching applications.

High-Memory Extra Large Instance

17.1 GB of memory
6.5 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 3.25 EC2 Compute Units each)
420 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Moderate
API name: m2.xlarge

High-Memory Double Extra Large Instance

34.2 GB of memory
13 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 3.25 EC2 Compute Units each)
850 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: m2.2xlarge

High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large Instance

68.4 GB of memory
26 EC2 Compute Units (8 virtual cores with 3.25 EC2 Compute Units each)
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: m2.4xlarge

High-CPU Instances

Instances of this family have proportionally more CPU resources than memory (RAM) and are well suited for compute-intensive applications.

High-CPU Medium Instance

1.7 GB of memory
5 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each)
350 GB of instance storage
32-bit platform
I/O Performance: Moderate
API name: c1.medium

High-CPU Extra Large Instance

7 GB of memory
20 EC2 Compute Units (8 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each)
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: c1.xlarge

Cluster Compute Instances

Instances of this family provide proportionally high CPU resources with increased network performance and are well suited for High Performance Compute (HPC) applications and other demanding network-bound applications. Learn more about use of this instance type for HPC applications.

Cluster Compute Quadruple Extra Large Instance

23 GB of memory
33.5 EC2 Compute Units (2 x Intel Xeon X5570, quad-core “Nehalem” architecture)
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Very High (10 Gigabit Ethernet)
API name: cc1.4xlarge

Also http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlazure/default.aspx

offers SQL Databases as a service with a free trial offer

If you are into .Net /SQL big time or too dependent on MS, Azure is a nice option to EC2 http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/popup/popup.aspx?lang=en&locale=en-US&offer=COMPARE_PUBLIC

Updated- I just got approved for Google Storage so am adding their info- though they are in Preview (and its free right now) 🙂

https://code.google.com/apis/storage/docs/overview.html

Functionality

Google Storage for Developers offers a rich set of features and capabilities:

Basic Operations

• Store and access data from anywhere on the Internet.
• Range-gets for large objects.
• Manage metadata.

Security and Sharing

• User authentication using secret keys or Google account.
• Authenticated downloads from a web browser for Google account holders.
• Secure access using SSL.
• Easy, powerful sharing and collaboration via ACLs for individuals and groups.

Performance and scalability

• Up to 100 gigabytes per object and 1,000 buckets per account during the preview.
• Strong data consistency—read-after-write consistency for all upload and delete operations.
• Namespace for your domain—only you can create bucket URIs containing your domain name.
• Data replicated in multiple data centers across the U.S. and within the same data center.

Tools

• Web-based storage manager.
• GSUtil, an open source command line tool.
• Compatible with many existing cloud storage tools and libraries.

Read the Getting Started Guide to learn more about the service.

Note: Google Storage for Developers does not support Google Apps accounts that use your company domain name at this time.

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Pricing

Google Storage for Developers pricing is based on usage.

• Storage—$0.17/gigabyte/month
• Network
  • Upload data to Google
    • $0.10/gigabyte
  • Download data from Google
    • $0.15/gigabyte for Americas and EMEA
    • $0.30/gigabyte for Asia-Pacific
• Requests
  • PUT, POST, LIST—$0.01 per 1,000 requests
  • GET, HEAD—$0.01 per 10,000 requests