Cloud Pricing Guide
Cloud pricing, a checklist approach
This checklist below can be used to help include all cloud infrastructure related cost line items in a cloud cost estimate.
| Service group | Service items | % of cost in a typical enterprise environment |
|---|---|---|
| Compute | Instances, containers, batch, CI/CD, web-servers, COTS servers, marketplace instances, etc. | Typically 30% to 60% of total spend is typically consumed on compute. Compute-adjacent services such as block storage, snapshots, and compute-related data transfer typically costs half of what compute itself costs. |
| Databases | Primary, replicas, and mirrors, storage and backup, read/writes (especially for NoSQL DBs) | Highly variable depending on DB fleet size and configuration. Typically 10% to 30% of total spend. |
| Storage | Block Storage, object storage, file storage, archive, and get/put operations | Highly variable depending on storage provisioning and data retention practices. Typically 10% to 30% of total spend. |
| Network | VPC, NAT gateway, data transfer, DNS, load balancers, API gateway, data center connection services, etc. | Typically 5% to 15% of total spend |
| Logging, systems, and security | Cloud monitoring/alerting, systems manager, firewall, etc. | Typically 2% to 5% of total spend |
| Support | - | Typically 2% to 7% of total spend |
| Marketplace | - | Varies |
| Tax | - | Varies |
| Discounts / Credits | - | Varies depending on if any EDP or EA is in place. |
| Contingency | - | Varies based on risk appetite. |
Additional questions that may help refine the estimate include:
- What assumptions were used to estimate total non-production costs?
Although cost modellers often assume non-production costs around 30% of production, in reality it often costs 50% to 80% of production. - Is the environment changing to one that is architected for high availability (HA)?
Some on-premises environment are not set up to be HA. Once cloud best practices are adopted and HA is applied, costs for HA environments can increase by up to 100%. - What assumptions were used to estimate production compute and database costs?
Using reservations and savings plans, the typical total discount will be 20% to 25% rather than the frequently assumed 50% to 70%.
Further detail can be found in this blog.