On Saturday, 19 August 2017 03:13:05 BST Stroller wrote:
> > On 18 Aug 2017, at 13:28, Todd Goodman <tsg@bonedaddy.net> wrote:

> > You'll need to look into the free tier to be sure.  You can always set
> > alerts to email you if you're getting close to getting charged.
> Thanks for your help.
> 
> Looks like the free tier is a bit skinny on storage - only 5GB.
> 
> Linode's pricing pitch, "simple pricing, no calculator needed", puts
> Amazon's rates to shame.
> 
> Stroller.

I'm going back a couple of years when I used to calculate the cost of AWS for 
work purposes.  The break even time of the cheapest AWS combo Vs self-hosting 
of a LAMP was around 2.4 years.  Now, the self-hosting was a really old and 
underutilised leased corporate data centre at rather expensive prices.  In 
most cases the report that went back to the Board said:  re-negotiate and 
extend the lease of the corporate data centre for software or storage you 
intend running in the long run.  If you want to test some web app, then by all 
means use AWS, *until* you have negotiated a better self-hosting deal.  BTW, 
the elastic AWS deal was almost always prohibitively expensive.  The above 
calculations refer to prepaying AWS for the utilisation required plus some 
margin to achieve the cheapest possible deal.  I appreciate that multi-year 
corporate deals enjoy better discounts by suppliers than you or I walking 
through the door, so YMMV.

For my current low demand needs, if I could have fibre to the premises where I 
live, I would consider hosting at home and would look for a friend to provide 
a hot standby and off premises back up.
-- 
Regards,
Mick