New research has found that cloud computing bills could be
cut as much as 30%, depending on what kind of chip is used in data centre
servers.
Researchers in Germany and Finland found that some server
clusters are 40% faster than others depending on what kind of processor the
servers run on. The analysis was carried out on Amazon’s EC2 cloud service and
carried out by computer scientists.
This is good news for cloud, especially since the cost
benefits for cloud computing has become clear for SMEs. An extra 30% slice of
their IT costs could allow for investment in other areas of a business.
According
to the BBC, "Amazon promotes its service as using generic hardware that
offers the same performance to every customer.”
The study measured the servers used by customers over the
course of a year, using software that "can interrogate the software that
controls the groups of servers” rented out to customers. This enabled them to
see which were running faster chips.
Those servers that were newer, using the most up-to-date
processors, performed much better than older hardware, the study found.
"Through a set of detailed micro-benchmark and application-level
benchmark measurements, we observe that the performance variation within the
same sub-type of instance is relatively small, whilst the variation between different
sub-types can be up to 60%,” researchers said in the paper.
The cost cuttings come into effect because the newer, faster
machines are able to process data much quicker than their older counterparts.
The full research paper can be found here
as a PDF download.