I've recently had to submit a projected costs to the business based upon an assumed number of website subscriptions. There isn't much guidance out there or case studies that touch upon costs, I hope this can be of use to other Project Managers out there in a similar situation.
Just a couple of assumptions to be had here about our Website usage. Hopefully these projections can be used and tweaked by others out there:
The number of Storage Transactions per webpage is - 294
The number of webpages viewed in a browsing session is - 4
Average number of visitors per website in any given month is - 232
The average days in a month is - 30.5
The average bandwidth Out, from Azure, used per website browsing session, in Kb, is - 880
On SQL Azure, the average storage size per website, in MB, is - 10
Man, that's exactly what I need. Thanks a lot for taking time to share this information.
I'm also planning in use Azure as the hosting platform for a few small websites. I have one question though: Why are you using 2 medium instances? Also, don't I need one SQL instance for each Umbraco installation or Can I have multiple databases inside the same instance? I'm not sure how azure works (still didn't use it even though a have it for free with a MSDN account).
We're hosting websites for customers and feel that by having two medium instances they will benefit from fantastic performance. If you take 2 instances using the Umbraco Accelerator, Microsoft provide you with a 99.5% SLA on your Azure boxes. That means if one goes down, the other box automatically takes over the work load and you don't suffer much downtime. They will also refund part of your monthly subscription should they not adhere to the 99.5% SLA.
You can find the SLA document on the web somewhere.
You only need to use the 1 SQL instance, just create a new database and point at that. The one thing though is that you pay for each database you have, not the instance. If you have 5 SQL Azure databases in the 1 instance you will pay 5 x $9.99 (assuming they are all under 1GB).
Microsoft have recently announced changes to the Azure subscription charges. From now, the free trial's come with over 2,000 hours of Extra Small compute instances, basically meaning that you pay very little during development/checking feasibility.
On first glances your figures look quite appealing for our 150+ sites... however, you seem to be running your 95 sites from 2 databases? In our scenario there is a need for separation between clients, so we would end up with 150DB's and @ $9.99 a month that is ~$1500, completely out of the question compared to other cloud hosts like rackspace that charge for total sql storage.
Have a missed a trick here? the info on sql azure pricing is...
Web Edition:
Size/Meter
Monthly Charges
Up to 1 GB relational database
$9.99
Seems to be that no matter if your DB is only 2Mb it will cost you $9.99 per database!
Please can you explaing how you are running 95 sites from 2 db's and 300 websites from 4 db's, only way I can think is you have multiple host names running from a single umbraco instance... (eg you perhps only have 4 clients in total for your 300 sites???)
cheers for the initial leg work on this.
http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/sites/pricing/ was the other option I was looking at where all our 150+ databases would only cost $5 a month! (only downside seems to be the modified medium trust that they run, and that they are only based in the US eg no geographical servers on the sites package)
SQL Azure charges are applied to 1GB (upto a max of 5GB DB size), 5GB (up to 10GB DB size) or 10GB (up to 50GB DA size) chunks. Each GB costs $9.99, so if you have 1 DB at 2MB you will be charged $9.99. If the DB was 1.002GB you would be charged $19.98.
We're using Umbraco with multiple domain names and each website we host will be roughly 10MB, depending on the content each client uploads. The figures I have posted are projected overhead costs and I have scaled up assuming the above subscribers come on board. Assuming we will be running 95 websites, we will have one, 2GB Database instance, hence why I have 2 $9.99 units. The size of the database isn't shown in my figures, just the number of SQL Azure units we will pay for. I hope this part makes sense.
Do you provide full CMS systems to your clients, which is why they all need seperate databases?
In my opinion, your scenario wouldn't be feasible on Azure. If you have hundreds of databases, you will be charged for each individual one. This is where purchasing virtual rack space or having a fully hosted service with an ISP is far more attractive. Microsoft just doesn't appear scalable to companies with many, many databases. I would rather Microsoft charge for overall SQL Azure space consumed and have as many DBs as you like than a per DB pricing model.
Cheers Cavan, it is a strange model, contrary to other sql cloud hosts and I'd come to the same conclusion that it precluded any developer needing multilple databases.
Yep we do provide full cms for our clients, and also we have to display client segregation, for the businsess we support we could not have a situation where there is any posibility of one db down all clients down, or clients accidentally having cross pollination of data due to shared admin.. :-(
Looks like we'll have to stick with rackspace... just need to iron out the slight incompatability of umbraco with medium trust.
Azure Costs for an Umbraco Site - Projections based upon Website numbers
I've recently had to submit a projected costs to the business based upon an assumed number of website subscriptions. There isn't much guidance out there or case studies that touch upon costs, I hope this can be of use to other Project Managers out there in a similar situation.
Just a couple of assumptions to be had here about our Website usage. Hopefully these projections can be used and tweaked by others out there:
Cav
Man, that's exactly what I need.
Thanks a lot for taking time to share this information.
I'm also planning in use Azure as the hosting platform for a few small websites.
I have one question though: Why are you using 2 medium instances?
Also, don't I need one SQL instance for each Umbraco installation or Can I have multiple databases inside the same instance? I'm not sure how azure works (still didn't use it even though a have it for free with a MSDN account).
We're hosting websites for customers and feel that by having two medium instances they will benefit from fantastic performance. If you take 2 instances using the Umbraco Accelerator, Microsoft provide you with a 99.5% SLA on your Azure boxes. That means if one goes down, the other box automatically takes over the work load and you don't suffer much downtime. They will also refund part of your monthly subscription should they not adhere to the 99.5% SLA.
You can find the SLA document on the web somewhere.
You only need to use the 1 SQL instance, just create a new database and point at that. The one thing though is that you pay for each database you have, not the instance. If you have 5 SQL Azure databases in the 1 instance you will pay 5 x $9.99 (assuming they are all under 1GB).
Microsoft have recently announced changes to the Azure subscription charges. From now, the free trial's come with over 2,000 hours of Extra Small compute instances, basically meaning that you pay very little during development/checking feasibility.
Glad I can be of help.
On first glances your figures look quite appealing for our 150+ sites... however, you seem to be running your 95 sites from 2 databases? In our scenario there is a need for separation between clients, so we would end up with 150DB's and @ $9.99 a month that is ~$1500, completely out of the question compared to other cloud hosts like rackspace that charge for total sql storage.
Have a missed a trick here? the info on sql azure pricing is...
Web Edition:
Seems to be that no matter if your DB is only 2Mb it will cost you $9.99 per database!
Please can you explaing how you are running 95 sites from 2 db's and 300 websites from 4 db's, only way I can think is you have multiple host names running from a single umbraco instance... (eg you perhps only have 4 clients in total for your 300 sites???)
cheers for the initial leg work on this.
http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/sites/pricing/ was the other option I was looking at where all our 150+ databases would only cost $5 a month! (only downside seems to be the modified medium trust that they run, and that they are only based in the US eg no geographical servers on the sites package)
Hi Mike,
SQL Azure charges are applied to 1GB (upto a max of 5GB DB size), 5GB (up to 10GB DB size) or 10GB (up to 50GB DA size) chunks. Each GB costs $9.99, so if you have 1 DB at 2MB you will be charged $9.99. If the DB was 1.002GB you would be charged $19.98.
We're using Umbraco with multiple domain names and each website we host will be roughly 10MB, depending on the content each client uploads. The figures I have posted are projected overhead costs and I have scaled up assuming the above subscribers come on board. Assuming we will be running 95 websites, we will have one, 2GB Database instance, hence why I have 2 $9.99 units. The size of the database isn't shown in my figures, just the number of SQL Azure units we will pay for. I hope this part makes sense.
Do you provide full CMS systems to your clients, which is why they all need seperate databases?
In my opinion, your scenario wouldn't be feasible on Azure. If you have hundreds of databases, you will be charged for each individual one. This is where purchasing virtual rack space or having a fully hosted service with an ISP is far more attractive. Microsoft just doesn't appear scalable to companies with many, many databases. I would rather Microsoft charge for overall SQL Azure space consumed and have as many DBs as you like than a per DB pricing model.
Cheers Cavan, it is a strange model, contrary to other sql cloud hosts and I'd come to the same conclusion that it precluded any developer needing multilple databases.
Yep we do provide full cms for our clients, and also we have to display client segregation, for the businsess we support we could not have a situation where there is any posibility of one db down all clients down, or clients accidentally having cross pollination of data due to shared admin.. :-(
Looks like we'll have to stick with rackspace... just need to iron out the slight incompatability of umbraco with medium trust.
Thanks again for expressing your opinion.
is working on a reply...