Microsoft: pay for the GB, get 500 IOPS/disk, with a maximum of 16 disks. (but you can't attach that many disks unless you pay for a larger instance size, too)
Microsoft (w/VM): I've included the cost of the compute instance in this summary. I used an A1 VM for CDN, A4 for DB, and A3 for Hybrid, at $35, $277, and $139 monthly, respectively.
CDN
Google: $325 for 1TB/30,000 IOPS.
Amazon: $225 for precisely 1TB/1,000 IOPS.
Microsoft: $50 (using 2 500GB disks)
Microsoft (w/vm): $85 (an A1 VM is required to use two disks)
DB
Google: $54 for 167GB/5,000 IOPS.
Amazon: $502 for 20GB/5,000 IOPS.
Microsoft: $1 for 20GB/5,000 IOPS (using 10 2GB disks)
Microsoft (w/vm): $278 (an A4 VM is required to use 9-16 disks)
Hybrid
Google: $162.50 for 500GB/15,000 IOPS.
Amazon: $312.50 for 500GB/2,500 IOPS.
Microsoft: $25 for 500GB/2500 IOPS (using 5 100 GB disks).
Microsoft (w/vm): $164 (an A3 VM is required to use 5-8 disks)
EDIT: I forgot to add a disclaimer. I am a student at the University of Northern Iowa. I am not affiliated with Amazon or Google. I am a Microsoft Partner, however. I was not paid or asked to write this post, and have never been directly paid by Microsoft to produce any writing, benchmark, or whatever, etc, etc. IANAL, etc. I have received standard gifts from them from attending conferences.
What are the advatages over normal servers. You can get (2x120GB intel ssd (75k iops each)/32gb ram/250 Mbit/s garanteed) servers for around 50$/Month from reputable hosters.
I prefer cloud based solutions where load is going to be an issue, but only sporadic load. You can easily spin up a new instance, pay for what you use and not be paying for it the rest of the year too. With the load balances available, this can even be made automatic.
It's also good if you want a dev environment which is exactly the same as production. spin up an environment for a day, then spin it down and only pay for usage.
But there are also downsides - you also want at least 2 servers of anything up at any time in case of a datacenter outage or upgrade. But I guess the availability is the upside of that.
I'm going to consider 3 cases:
CDN: 1TB of storage, 1000 IOPS required. (a cache or "smart"/ACLed CDN)
DB: 20GB of storage, 5000 IOPS required. (a moderately sized database)
Hybrid: 500GB of storage, 2500 IOPS required. (some composite of the two)
A summary of pricing right now for storage IOPS:
Here's how they are currently priced:Google: pay for the GB, get a fixed IOPS/GB.
Amazon: pay for the GB, pay for the IOPS.
Microsoft: pay for the GB, get 500 IOPS/disk, with a maximum of 16 disks. (but you can't attach that many disks unless you pay for a larger instance size, too)
Microsoft (w/VM): I've included the cost of the compute instance in this summary. I used an A1 VM for CDN, A4 for DB, and A3 for Hybrid, at $35, $277, and $139 monthly, respectively.
CDN
Google: $325 for 1TB/30,000 IOPS.
Amazon: $225 for precisely 1TB/1,000 IOPS.
Microsoft: $50 (using 2 500GB disks)
Microsoft (w/vm): $85 (an A1 VM is required to use two disks)
DB
Google: $54 for 167GB/5,000 IOPS.
Amazon: $502 for 20GB/5,000 IOPS.
Microsoft: $1 for 20GB/5,000 IOPS (using 10 2GB disks)
Microsoft (w/vm): $278 (an A4 VM is required to use 9-16 disks)
Hybrid
Google: $162.50 for 500GB/15,000 IOPS.
Amazon: $312.50 for 500GB/2,500 IOPS.
Microsoft: $25 for 500GB/2500 IOPS (using 5 100 GB disks).
Microsoft (w/vm): $164 (an A3 VM is required to use 5-8 disks)
EDIT: I forgot to add a disclaimer. I am a student at the University of Northern Iowa. I am not affiliated with Amazon or Google. I am a Microsoft Partner, however. I was not paid or asked to write this post, and have never been directly paid by Microsoft to produce any writing, benchmark, or whatever, etc, etc. IANAL, etc. I have received standard gifts from them from attending conferences.