Sustainability Victoria

Flexible Resources – hidden bonus and application testing

Traditionally, pre-release test phases require a server test environment as close to the production

servers as is possible. In complicated deployments, this can involve multiple dedicated test

servers. With most ‘clouds’ you only pay for the time you use, which means that it is easy to spawn

five or six new testing instances and be operational.

When testing is finished, the user simply shuts those instances down. This can also be used for

load and volume testing.

Other benefits include:

• Green Computing. Server utilisation is maximised as the environment automatically scales

up or down with demand.

• Simplicity. Outsourcing the server environment to a cloud provider has greatly simplified

the infrastructure.

Cost Comparison

Calculating the direct costs for Cloud Computing can be challenging, as charging is based

on a slightly different set of metrics to the usual metrics used for servers and bandwidth.

Amazon has a Monthly Cost Calculator, which can be accessed via

http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/calc5.html

The migration by Handset Detection to AWS saw costs increase by approximately 10 percent.

Though a small amount of raw computing capacity was lost due to the virtualised nature of the cloud,

this was offset by the benefits gained through auto scaling, load balancing and massive flexibility.

Application to Other Businesses (can the same principles be applied

to an SME)?

Enterprise grade virtualisation has been around for some time and Cloud Computing is the next

step in that direction.

Whilst Handset Detection utilises public cloud infrastructure, SMEs can take advantage of virtual

private clouds (http://aws.amazon.com/vpc/) to meet business objectives. Though it is not suited

to all business applications, careful consideration will need to be given to ensure alignment with

business objectives and expectations.

As an example, the AWS infrastructure provides unlimited access...