While computing in the cloud can cost less than running servers in your enterprise data center, the question of how much less isn’t an easy one to answer. The issue has gotten more complex, as Amazon and others have dozens of different cloud services available.

In this research note, we look at some of the current challenges of calculating cloud costs when using services from the major Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) vendors, some of the more important pricing issues to understand, noteworthy third-party vendors to watch, and our predictions for the future. You can view my paper here.