I think this post raises some good points but really misses the mark.
Firstly support. On dedicated hosting on some providers, yes you will get a quicker response than from Amazon or Microsoft or whoever your cloud provider is. However, when there is a problem with their service, by the time I find out about it I am normally looking on their site to see they have already been notified of the problem and are already looking into it. And Microsoft Azure does have phone support for any critical issues.
The 2nd great thing about the cloud is that, it isn't just your problem. They are hundreds if not thousands of companies affected and they are more likely spending far more money than me with them. Hence I get the rapid fix of any issues, without being the big client.
Benchmarks - not sure why that was brought up, you can benchmark on any cloud provider. On Windows Azure I can find out everything from CPU to memory usage and do remote profiling.
Dedicated will give you better costs, machine to machine wise but I would rather pay $1,000 + more a month to have someone look after all my hardware and the ability to scale as a I wish, rather than have to pay someone (who would cost far more) to monitor, upgrade and plan for it continuously. If $150 to $1,500 is an issue and you are prepared to spend a large part of your own time on this insignificant issues, then I suppose you are a startup and not a business yet.
I understand doing everything yourself at the start, staying as lean as possible, but if you are looking at that scale and hiring people then the costs of the cloud are FAR more attractive.
Firstly support. On dedicated hosting on some providers, yes you will get a quicker response than from Amazon or Microsoft or whoever your cloud provider is. However, when there is a problem with their service, by the time I find out about it I am normally looking on their site to see they have already been notified of the problem and are already looking into it. And Microsoft Azure does have phone support for any critical issues.
The 2nd great thing about the cloud is that, it isn't just your problem. They are hundreds if not thousands of companies affected and they are more likely spending far more money than me with them. Hence I get the rapid fix of any issues, without being the big client.
Benchmarks - not sure why that was brought up, you can benchmark on any cloud provider. On Windows Azure I can find out everything from CPU to memory usage and do remote profiling.
Dedicated will give you better costs, machine to machine wise but I would rather pay $1,000 + more a month to have someone look after all my hardware and the ability to scale as a I wish, rather than have to pay someone (who would cost far more) to monitor, upgrade and plan for it continuously. If $150 to $1,500 is an issue and you are prepared to spend a large part of your own time on this insignificant issues, then I suppose you are a startup and not a business yet.
I understand doing everything yourself at the start, staying as lean as possible, but if you are looking at that scale and hiring people then the costs of the cloud are FAR more attractive.