Cisco Systems Inc. claims that its UCS S-Series Storage Servers cost 56 percent less over a 3-year period than Amazon S3 storage service from Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS).
Bill Shields, Cisco’s chief technology officer, made this claim in a blog post that examined AWS costs in comparison to on-premises implementations.
Shields explained last week that she was asked “How would a S3260 managed in a customer’s own data center or col” to compare to Amazon S3 storage. “I was completely amazed at what I found.
The short version is that the on-prem solution costs 56 percent less over three years and has a 13-month breakeven point. If CapEx is not your thing, a Cisco Capital lease can make your monthly payments less than Amazon’s. I wonder if this is why HubSpot, Moz and Dropbox are moving away public cloud.
Shields used this AWS pricing to compare his company’s offering to an AWS configuration that offered 420TB of storage and an always-on 10Gbps connection. Shields also considered network and support costs.
The AWS configuration was compared to a UCS S3260 Storage Server. Additional expenses were added for a warranty, software license, and other costs. Shields compared the Amazon S3 costs to $243,432 for three years. The Cisco server configuration was at $243,432.
Shields explained the details of the comparison and concluded that while we all desire instant gratification, data stored in the cloud is more cost-effective over the long term. There are many good reasons data should be stored in the cloud. There are also very good reasons why data should remain on-prem. It will depend on the cost, application speed, privacy concerns, and security concerns. It is not an exhaustive list and you will need your data in the right place.
