The Cost of the Cloud

Modern IT infrastructure and planning have caused a mass exodus from on-premise data centers into services like AWS, Azure, and GCP. Marketing touts that the cloud is safer, more convenient, easier to plan, and cheaper than building your own. But what's the true cost? Many companies jump headfirst into cloud solutions without counting the cost. Later, they are baffled by massive budget-busting bills. Using AWS as his model, Daniel Brown will deliver some insights on cloud cost so that the practitioner can effectively plan for cloud tenancy. He will call out tricky or deceptive billing practices. Pricing paradigms, like compute-based, storage-based, and traffic-based, will be defined and deconstructed. He will explain how managed versus unmanaged services can affect pricing. Counting the cost of the cloud requires a new thought framework not just a review of provider pricing.