How to Make Pay per Use Cloud Computing Work for You

Cheap cloud hosting does exist, and the secret is pay as you go via tech partnerships!

It’s true, I kid you not! Check our tech partnership testimonial video out right here.

With groundbreaking changes and evolutions in industry, there will always be an old guard of sorts who are attached to the old ways of doing things, even though there are benefits to changing their approach.

Cloud services and infrastructure as a movement has received a mixed reception in the last five years, just as medicine was held back a few 100 years by religious blockades during feudal times.

At the end of the day, everything in business comes back to money, so if there was a way of procuring cloud services that didn’t eat up your entire IT budget each year, it would probably be of interest, right?

Well that’s what we’re covering here, so listen close… there’s money to be saved.

Let’s say you, our promising new startup or SMB (small medium business) in this instance, is constructing its infrastructure from scratch.

In an ideal world, you’d need to leverage a couple of premium services from multiple providers to give your developers the best possible tools to use. On top of that, maybe some space to design, build and launch in, but it all depends on your business, team and goals.

Unfortunately, what we outline above is not an option right now. None of the big providers are going to consider doing anything more than allowing you to leverage services from their free tier, which anyone can decide to use and do themselves anyway.

So maybe you approach a third party services provider, for example us… Cloudhelix down in sunny Brighton.

Now, not only are you out of the danger zone known as ‘vendor lock-in’ where you’re constrained to using the systems and infrastructure of a free tier, but you also have a unique opportunity moving forward.

A managed service provider will have no bias towards one service or vendor more than another. They may even suggest Kubernetes or Cloud Foundry as a way to construct your own Platform as a Service (PaaS) from scratch, avoiding vendor lock-in from the get go.

The Dream That is cheap cloud hosting – Pay as you go (PAYG) and pay as you sell (PAYS)

Demonstrating that your business model definitely has the potential to generate capital to your provider means that either of the above may be applicable to you.

The importance in trust and honesty in this relationship is that you will be asking them to make a small investment in your business as they test the waters.

Once you’re ready to go to market or just begin hitting your stride in development, due to their investment, not only are they inclined to advise and set you up with the most financially efficient hybrid infrastructure and services they can, but furthermore they will be willing to sit on and support their investment to grow as you grow (as ideally you’ll be using spare space on their infrastructure).

Pay as you sell (PAYS)

This is a model where by every time you sell your offering, you then pay a portion directly to your cloud provider.

As your business and its needs scale past the initial free usage you agreed on, you will pay for any additional needs past that.

This system is very ammicabale in enabling a startup to scale without huge constraints on capital, and allows doing it in the most cost efficient way possible, never utilising more than what’s required (which is really what everyone should be aiming for, not just a PAYG model).

At a point, this will level out and in good faith of the investment they have shown, you will be in a better place financially to pay up the balance with your provider.

This kind of relationship shows the signs of a solid tech partnership, which is much more valuable for a growing SMB or startup than your typical client/ provider relationship.

If you show promise to scale your business, it becomes beneficial for your provider to work with you. The more you grow, the more money available for them to help you grow. What have they got to loose? Unless, of course, you’re an absolute nightmare to work with ;).

Pay Per Use Cloud Computing (PPUC) or Pay As You Go Cloud (PAYGC)

This is more commonly offered by the bigger providers (such as AWS, Google, IBM and Azure) where by the newest models can be paid for per millisecond of code executed. However, using a PaaS like AWS Lambda for example does constrain you to building and running specifically on their systems, so be wary depending on your needs.

Against traditional dedicated in-house servers that will be spinning constantly 24/7/365, a PAYG model would only spin up your cloud servers as and when you need them. They will scale to accommodate additional traffic only when it’s there and will shrink back the moment it’s not needed, creating a system of efficiency.

It does what it says on the tin. If your useage is highly variable then it’s a decent shout to go with PAYG to minimise cost and help you pay for what’s needed.

More consistent and steady system demands may be more worthy of building a dedicated server structure, but again that would be something to look at a few years down the line, once you know that is definitely the case.

Tech Partnerships

This system can work, and if you feel you have a solid offering that has promise to grow and scale using the cloud, especially if you’re starting the conversation with cloud native development (a la Netflix and Facebook) in mind.

By having an open, honest conversation with your provider about a tech partnership as an entry to pay per use cloud computing, there’s an opportunity to access the opportunities the cloud offers without the huge upfront investment, all while learning and growing with your provider.

If you don’t have a full stack multi-cloud architecture and systems engineer with 15+ years experience on-hand then your cloud partner will also be able to offer some serious money saving recommendations along the way with anything technology-related. Cloud vendors will make their experts available to you, providing support that solves your issues (trust us, they’ll have seen it all before) while saving you a lot of potentially expensive headaches.

With a pay as you sell or pay as you go approach, a cloud provider has a vested interest in supporting the success of your business. It’s a great example of how you can utilise exactly the services you need, regardless of how out of reach they might seem right now. The benefit for the provider is a financial one; as your business grows, they will reap the reward in the form of increasing technological needs.

As always, if this is something that intersts you and you wish to talk to us then of course give us a call or drop us a message using the form below.

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