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Hourly Billing. Do we need it?
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Hourly Billing. Do we need it?

serverianserverian Member
edited October 2012 in General

As you know some of the cloud computing providers offer hourly billing system.

Does anyone really need this particularly?

If so, why exactly? How often people would need to use more memory or CPU for a short while?

I know every provider that does downgrade/upgrade resources separately can offer 1 day billing by simply upgrading today and downgrading tomorrow to get the money back.

Comments

  • jhjh Member

    Not something I've ever needed

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran

    In theory this should lead to a better use of available resources, ppl will not buy a big ass VPS to be sure and also abusers will not be able to get a much lower VPS than their needs.
    In practice, unless you are truly global, most ppl will need resources at the same time so you have to have the capacity unless your prices vary during the day.
    It has potential but probably not easy to setup and admin.
    M

  • I don't think is necessarily about CPU, I think it's more about usage peaks in general. At the company I work for, our peaks are mostly in the evening. We could use extra server capacity (mostly IO) then and use less in the mornings (and especially the nights, when there's hardly any visitors).

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran

    Yes, and if the host is charging more at peak hours is not a good idea. I will probably work for big global providers.
    M

  • Some workloads benefit from resource on demand without a big capex outlay upfront (i.e. servers sitting around waiting for work). Hourly billing is more a side-effect (pay for what you use) than a goal in itself. An example of a company that benefits from auto-scale up (and down) and thus per minute/hour charges is Netflix. You can read more about how they do that: http://techblog.netflix.com/2012/01/auto-scaling-in-amazon-cloud.html

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