Developing a Cloud Computing Charging Model for High-Performance Computing Resources

This paper examines the economics of cloud computing charging from the perspective of a supercomputing resource provider offering its own resources. To evaluate the competitiveness of our computing center with cloud computing resources, we develop a comprehensive system utilization charging model similar to that used by Amazon EC2 and apply the model to our current resources and planned procurements. For our current resource, we find that charging for computational time may be appropriate, but that charging for data traffic between the supercomputer and the storage/front-end systems would result in negligible additional revenue. Similarly, charging for data storage capacity at currently typical commercial rates yields insufficient revenue to offset the acquisition and operation of the storage. However, when we extend the analysis to a capacity cluster scheduled for deployment in the first half of 2010 that will be made available to users through batch, Grid, and cloud interfaces, we find that the resource will be competitive with current and anticipated cloud rates.