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More About Private Cloud Pricing

Unlike shared, dedicated and cloud servers, private cloud pricing can be a little unclear, and for a reason. Cloud servers have well defined specs - either a given price for so much RAM, CPU, storage and bandwidth (subscription pricing), or a given rate for RAM, CPU, storage and bandwidth actually used (utility pricing). Private cloud pricing varies widely because the hardware, the infrastructure, and even the cloud technology used, vary widely from vendor to vendor and customer to customer.

Private clouds' hardware, server count, power and bandwidth allotment change for each case, leading to price variations. Many ISPs have a number of private cloud configurations, and most customize the private cloud in accordance to customer’s needs and requirements, leading to even greater price divergence. Private clouds can be powered by commercial or open source (OS) technologies such as. Free and paid OS cloud software includes Eucalyptus, Linux KVM, and Xen. Cloud software is commercially available from Citrix, VMware, Microsoft, 3Tera (Applogic grid engine) and others. Each vendor offers several product (the familiar "good, better, best" paradigm) with different features and price points. Finally, ISPs have large variation in the quality and location of their data centers, network, bandwidth and power systems.

A prospective private cloud client should research the market well, select an ISP and data center known for stability, speed, and quality technical support, and choose a provider based on reputation and quality, not private cloud price alone.

VMware Hosting Pricing

VMware hosting refers to leasing a virtual dedicated server (VDS) from an ISP. The server has the characteristics of a dedicated server, but it resides on a single physical server, and shares resources with 10-20 other VDSs. VMware hosting pricing usually falls between shared hosting and dedicated hosting prices, but there are exceptions.

VMware hosting pricing and specifications vary wildly, for a reason. A quick search reveals hosting plans with 512MB to 4GB RAM, 10-50GB storage, 10GB to Unlimited bandwidth, 1 or 2 CPUs, and so on. Some providers charge extra for firewall and database hosting, while others do not. Some providers offer more sophisticated products than others, for example fail-over, high availability, storage replication and backups.

The points is that when evaluating VMware hosting pricing, one must avoid comparing apples to oranges. The lower end of VMware pricing and features resembles shared hosting, while the high end is closer to dedicated. Just because a provider can save costs using virtualization software, does not guarantee that the savings are passed along to the customer.

The last thing to consider when comparing VMware hosting prices is the quality of the ISP's data centers, technical support and connectivity. The most feature laden server won't do you much good if the bandwidth is slow, the data center has frequent outages, and problems take days to resolve. Invest in a quality ISP with a track record of stability and service quality, such as PEER 1 and other first tier hosting providers.