A Cost Model for Hybrid Clouds

Cloud computing aims at allowing customers to utilize computational resources and software hosted by service providers. Thus, it shifts the complex and tedious resource and software management tasks typically done by customers to the service providers. Besides promising to eliminate these obstacles of resource management for consumers, Cloud computing also promises to reduce the cost of IT infrastructure. In particular, it promises to reduce the cost of IT through lower capital and operational expenses, stemming from a Cloud's economies of scale and from allowing organizations to purchase just as much computer and storage resources as needed whenever needed. A clear specification of savings however requires a detailed specification of the costs incurred. Although there are some efforts to define cost models for Clouds, the need for a comprehensive cost model, which covers all cost factors, is undeniable. In this paper, we cover this gap by suggesting a cost model for hybrid Clouds (i.e., the combinations of a private data center (private Cloud) and the public Cloud). This model is based on a comprehensive literature research on cost factors and the idea of combining cost of data centers and cost for using Clouds. Finally, we demonstrate the workings of the suggested cost model by applying it to a specific Cloud scenario.