> > I wonder how many people are now using Amazon or Azure as an option vs > buying best in the breed local computing power. >
In my spare time I'm attempting to replace the server that been sitting under my desk for 17 years (not the same one!) with cloud services. I've got 5 of my static web sites up in Azure at the moment and the last one will go up when I'm sure I can install the SSL certificate okay. A handful of simple SOAP and REST web services are also mapped as virtual directories and running in these static Azure sites. GOOD: The performance is fabulous! Web sites don't have to "wake up" any more and everything responds and downloads in a blink. It's not taking up my broadband allowance. It's not burning my electricity. BAD: I have to FTP up the files and deploy the apps. The Azure burn rate hints that without an MSDN free quota I would be paying about $700/year ( *WHAT!* These sites and apps are mostly idle, so it's an appalling cost increase compared to running my own server box). The last hurdles are replacing my old Mercury mail server with something upstairs, and where to put the 350 gigwatts of mp3 files. *GK*
