Windows Azure prices revealed

Just few days ago, Microsoft finally announced the pricing of its cloud computing platform, Azure. Personally, I've long waited for this information to become available, and now it is finally online. Here is a quick summary of the pricing in USD:

Windows Azure

• Computing time: $0.12 per hour
• Storage: $0.15 per GB per month
• Bandwidth: inbound $0.10 per GB, outbound $0.15 per GB

SQL Server databases

• Web Edition, up to 1 GB database: $9.99 per month
• Business Edition, up to 10 GB database: $99.99 per month
• Bandwidth: inbound $0.10 per GB, outbound $0.15 per GB (same as in Azure)

At this point, I'm not sure how every thinkable scenario will be calculated. For instance, I'm not 100% certain how the computing time is calculated, but I assume that it's the time your Azure application is deployed and available, and not the number of hours the application(s) consume a hour's worth of CPU time.

Even with these uncertainties, I wanted to have a quick idea of the price level. Let's assume a simple web application that needs to access a small SQL database, and that storage requirements are modest: in the range of 2-3 gigabytes, and that the 1 GB SQL database would be plenty. If the usage of the application is also light, say, 5 to 10 gigabytes of traffic per month (50% in, 50% out), and the SQL bandwidth would be 4 GB in total, the calculations reveal the following:

• Azure computing time per month: 24*30 hours = $0.12 * 720 = $86.40
• Azure storage per month: 3 GB = $0.15 * 3 = $0.45
• Azure bandwidth per month: 5 GB in, 5 GB out = $0.10 * 5 + $0.15 * 5 = $1.25
• SQL Server database, Web Edition = $9.99
• SQL Server database, Web Edition = $9.99
• SQL bandwidth per month: 2 GB in, 2 GB out = $0.10 * 2 + $0.15 * 2 = $0.50
• Total per month: $98.59

So, for about $100 per month, you could have a hosted web application with an SQL server database and extensible computing power whenever you need it. If you compare Azure's pricing to certain web hosting providers, like DiscountASP.NET which I'm using for Nimacon, you can get a similarly specified site for around $15 per month.

Time will tell what becomes of Azure, but if you need configurable computing power (something you cannot do with web hosts) and support for applications beyond simple ASP.NET web applications, then Azure might be your choice. I'm waiting till November to see how Azure picks up and what kind of applications are running there.