Cloud: Amazon Web Services Adds Free Tier
Sometimes it’s the simplest things that have the most far-reaching implications. Here’s a good example: Amazon Web Services (AWS), the IaaS provider that probably demands no introduction, is launching a totally free cloud offering for developers that lasts a full year. When coupled with the free tier of services AWS already offers, it sounds like a compelling strategy. Here are some details.
The services available on the AWS free tier, taken directly from Amazon’s press release:
- 750 hours per month of micro Linux Amazon EC2 instance usage — enough to run continuously (there are approximately 750 hours in a month)
- 750 hours per month of an Amazon Elastic Load Balancer
- 10 GB per month of Amazon Elastic Block Storage
- 5 GB per month of Amazon S3 Storage
- 30 GB per month of internet data transfer (15 GB of data transfer “in” and 15 GB of data transfer “out” across all services)
But wait, there’s more: Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), and Amazon SimpleDB all integrate with the offerings described above – and they all have free tiers. That means that developers have a pretty strong foundation for building and deploying cloud applications at no cost to themselves.
Of course, AWS is almost certainly hoping customers monetize with paid instances and continue after their year of freebies is up- they’re still aiming for profitability, of course. But The VAR Guy is still wondering when and if the competing Microsoft Windows Azure cloud platform will launch a similar freemium offering?
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Take that Microsoft Windows Azure! What a smart move by Amazon to offer ISVs a free year on AWS to do development. When Microsoft took the wraps off Windows Azure in early 2010 the party only lasted 30 days and then Microsoft turned on the meter. At the time I commented that Microsoft should have kept Windows Azure free for a much longer period in order to let their developers give Azure a good test drive. And by Mr. Ballmer’s own admission, the company doesn’t expect to generate much revenue from Azure for several years. So why didn’t Microsoft do the same smart thing that Amazon has just done? After all, the company has got an army of developers who they are counting on to move their development to Windows Azure and .NET in the cloud. From Microsoft’s perspective it would be better to get them their sooner rather than later. In the meantime, the AWS juggernaut continues to gather momentum.
Tim: The VAR Guy appreciates your point. Can you refresh our resident blogger’s memory: Are you a solutions provider? IT manager? Some other role? The VAR Guy wonders if/how you plan to leverage public clouds. Thanks.
-TVG
The VAR Guy@2: I’ve worked in the reseller channel for 25-years with various organizations and as a self-employed IT consultant. Last year I re-tooled my IT consultancy around cloud computing, which I think is the most significant change in the IT landscape I’ve seen since the emergence of PC LANs in the early 1980s.
I’m currently using the public cloud for Internet Web security (Panda/Zscaler), network monitoring (Apparent Networks), messaging and office apps (Google), CRM (Salesforce), conferencing (dimdim) and file-synchronization (Dropbox).
Tim: You’ve impressed The VAR Guy. Please keep our resident blogger posted as you make more cloud moves.
-TVG