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I have a very simple question, let's say I want to deploy a new application accessible to all countries of europe, why do I have to use the cloud? since Amazon's "CLOUD" servers are located in ireland, what's the point of using their servers when I can buy a dedicated machine with unlimited bandwidth in 2 or 3 countries over europe?

I really don't understand the difference.

can anyone please explain why the amazons cloud is any better?

popo joe
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Firstly, "unlimited bandwidth" doesn't exist. There will be a fair use policy that applies. Secondly, what you are buying into with Amazon's cloud service is their infrastructure that is proved to be able to deal with load.

Secondly, a cloud provider like EC2 or Azure gives you the ability to scale your application to multiple servers very quickly if needed, and scale down when demand is lower. For example, if you were buying dedicated servers to deal with a single peak period that you have in the year, for the rest of the year the potential of those servers would be sitting dormant. With a scaling cloud service you only pay for the time that the additional servers are required.

Finally, depending on what software you are looking to run on the server there may be licensing implications that will be your issue if you use a dedicated server, that will not be there if you use a cloud service.

While the upfront cost might look similar, or even cheaper for a dedicated machine, you should consider the TCO.

Tim Ebenezer
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  • Hello Tim thanks for your answer, since the cloud services are very expensive, (cost by hour for very small machines), OVH rents servers with 32 Go RAM, 2x 120Go SSD, 4 / 8 cores for only 50$, on the cloud you get smaller but "scalable" machine, I don't understand why I have an advantage using amazons EC2 when I can get this kind of machine for really cheap... I know amazon got flexible processing power, but whats the point of flexible power if I have to pays hundreds of dollars for small servers that can scale, I'd rather rent 1 very powerful machine than many small expensive machines... – popo joe Oct 31 '13 at 12:11
  • In hosting you get what you pay for. OVH is cutting corners somewhere to offer those prices. I did find the server you were looking at, the cost is not $55, but instead $107.69 at current conversion rates. – datasage Oct 31 '13 at 13:31