Costing of Cloud Computing Services: A Total Cost of Ownership Approach

Abstract

The use of Cloud Computing Services appears to offer significant cost advantages. Particularly start-up companies benefit from these advantages, since frequently they do not operate an internal IT infrastructure. But are costs associated with Cloud Computing Services really that low? We found that particular cost types and factors are frequently underestimated by practitioners. In this paper we present a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) approach for Cloud Computing Services. We applied a multi-method approach (systematic literature review, analysis of real Cloud Computing Services, expert interview, case study) for the development and evaluation of the formal mathematical model. We found that our model fits the practical requirements and supports decision-making in Cloud Computing.