We all use cars. Some prefer to own a car while others prefer to rent. Which model is better is an individual question.
When it comes to enterprise computing, there have long been a single operation model – to own the computing resource. With the advent of virtualization technology, data centre co-location model, the cloud became popular. Cloud computing is essentially the same delivery model as renting a car.

The table compares the two delivery models with car and computing resource as examples
Delivery Model | Own | Rent |
---|---|---|
Example | buying a car buying servers and operating on-premise | renting a car (e.g. by mileage and time) Renting computing resource (from public cloud) |
Cost | one upfront cost plus on-going maintenance | usage-based billing, with potential discount on fix-term rent (leases) |
How trade happens | cars are sold in dealership computing resources are sold by hardware vendors | car rental service is delivered physically at the rental agency computing resource in the cloud is delivered over high speed network, in response to API request to public cloud vendors |
Pros | Cost is relatively predictable regardless of usage | subscribe to the latest technology (or model, version, security patch, etc) without additional cost |
Cons | Maintenance responsibility. Technology becomes out of date | Cost can spin out of control if usage is not being monitored closely |
In the cloud, it is significantly cheaper to provision computing resources. However, moving to cloud does not automatically guarantee cost effectiveness. It is important to architect cloud-based solution the right way for the best return on investment.
With cloud computing, the rental business model also means lack of user loyalty. Cloud vendors hope to lock in their users with increasing cost of transfer. Community-led initiatives such as Kubernetes aims to standardize the cloud platform and abstract the differences away from platform users. The success of Kubernetes created an entire cloud native landscape of open-source projects. In return, some of these technologies such as service mesh greatly enabled Kubernetes platform, by allowing applications to offload non-business features down to the platform. Welcome to the cloud native era!
Read more about cloud:
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- Landing Zone in Azure – Introduction - I recently renewed my associate administrator certification, and feel it's a good opportunity to brush up on Azure landing zone. The lame part of this is the semantics. I found many similar terms across cloud service provider (CSPs). In the context of Azure, it makes sense to clarify the terms… ... Read moreLanding Zone in Azure – Introduction
- Computing services: from PaaS to Serverless - Silicon Valley startups in mid-2000s likely do not run their own IT operations (i.e. renting their own data centre spaces, purchasing their own rack-mounted servers). Since the launch of EC2, AWS has been renting extra computing capacity to those startups, in the IaaS model. The leased infrastructure requires maintenance work,… ... Read moreComputing services: from PaaS to Serverless
- MinIO for S3-compatible Object Storage - I reviewed some storage technologies on Kubernetes but they are all for block and file storage. In this post, I will discuss the current available options for container workload to use object storage. I will also touch on MinIO as an object storage solution. Object storage Block and file system… ... Read moreMinIO for S3-compatible Object Storage
- FSx ONTAP – Enterprise storage on AWS - Even though object storage has gained a lot of popularity, file storage is still prevalent. AWS has Elastic File System but the performance is insufficient for enterprise workload. The FSx product line has enterprise storage options and on Sept 2, 2021, AWS launched FSx ONTAP. This post is my impression… ... Read moreFSx ONTAP – Enterprise storage on AWS
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