Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use.

Read on to learn the top five benefits that almost guarantee Cloud Computing will explode over the next several years.

Sure organizations must consider the possible security and privacy risks associated with Cloud Computing, but these are relatively easy to plan for and overcome. And the benefits to those who figure out how to mitigate these risks can be significant. Here are the top five to consider:

1. Total Cost of Ownership. Since Cloud technology is priced on a utility model, organizations pay only for the CPU, memory, storage and bandwidth resources used. This can mean a significant reduction in TCO.
2. Unlimited Storage Capacity. Enterprise data requirements continue to expand at an ever-increasing rate. With Cloud Computing organizations can store far more data than on their own private computing infrastructure.
3. IT Automation. No longer do IT personnel need to worry about keeping software up to date. No longer having to worry about constant server updates and other computing issues, government organizations will be free to concentrate on innovation.
4. Flexibility. Cloud computing offers much more flexibility than past computing methods.
5. Mobility. Employees can access information wherever they are, rather than having to remain at their desks.

Amazon

Softlayer

If you currently own your own computing infrastructure or are considering building out a new configuration, remember to consider all the “hidden” costs of ownership; servers, network equipment, rack space, etc., PLUS all of your operational costs such as power, cooling, system administration, etc. Also remember you will pay most of these costs regardless what percentage of capacity utilization you end up consuming!

Amazon’s EC2 model has helped many of our clients drive capital expense out of their IT operation, enabling large enterprises and startups alike mitigate the investment risk typically associated with business expansion.

While on-demand flexibility is effective across a wide range of business scenarios, many of our Amazon EC2 clients whose Cloud Computing workloads, usage and sizing requirements are relatively predictable prefer the ability to reserve capacity. Amazon’s EC2 Reserved Instances provide the perfect solution for these clients, reducing cost while also guaranteeing availability of the resources needed to meet their specific business needs.

Provisioning Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances is relatively straightforward; you simply make an affordable one-time payment for each instance you reserve and get a substantial discount on the hourly cost for that instance. And, as an added bonus, you do not pay hourly charges during periods during which the instance turned off.

Reserved Instances improve flexibility, reducing your IT expense. And, since the Reserved Instances work just like On-Demand Instances, you have the power to seamlessly expand your reserved computing base with completely scalable, on-demand capacity.

A number of our clients have workloads that are fairly predictable, from enterprises that run ERP and CRM applications, to media companies who host Web sites and stream rich media, to startups providing Web-based applications. Many of these clients can establish a predictable base usage level and take advantage of Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances.

For clients who already own their own server infrastructure Reserved Instances offer a great migration strategy, giving them the opportunity to plan ahead as they transition to Cloud technology and begin to reduce total cost of ownership.

While you do have to pay a minimal upfront expense to reserve capacity with Amazon’s Reserved Instances, the operational cost is incurred only as you actually utilize capacity. This approach gives you the best of worlds, reducing your TCO while still providing elastic computing resources.

The Little Cloud is in production and on track to reduce their workstation and laptop hardware expense by 67% ($2M) over the next 10 years.
Read the entire story on Cloud Computing Journal.