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Forum Discussion

Chris_FP's avatar
Chris_FP
Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
Sep 08, 2014

AWS costs vs home server

I am looking to decide whether to use AWS for my F5 needs (home use and learning) as opposed to upgrading my home ESX server. Both would just be using Lab license and would need to work in HA (not s...
aws
cloud
costs
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operating costs
What_Lies_Bene1's avatar
What_Lies_Bene1
Icon for Cirrostratus rankCirrostratus
Sep 30, 2014

Hey Chris,

 

I decided to use AWS instead of purchasing a home server for both cost, speed and maintenance reasons. I've no interest in learning about VMware in a single server scenario.

 

Using a 200Mb Good instance is currently working out at around $0.50 an hour. I stop everything when its not in use which obviously saves money. Signing up for the 'free tier' also gives you the ability to spin up free Linux and Windows hosts and create a pretty decent lab setup. I've yet to top $10 a month. As you have your own licenses its even cheaper.

 

As Daniel has said, some of the AWS ways of doing things isn't too obvious to a network guy but with some planning and forethought and once you've read all the F5 guides its not too bad. Of course, its also very easy to zap it all and start again.

 

I managed to get hold of a license recently so I rebuilt everything from scratch. I'm currently running with a Best license on an M3.xlarge with SSD disk for $0.28 an hr. There are other minor costs for storage etc. but it shouldn't top 0.50hr.