Cloud400 clients that shopped around before they settled on our IBM i (AS400/iSeries) hosting solution commonly tell us that we are 30%-70% less expensive than other providers.
How can Cloud400 be 30%-70% less expensive than other hosting providers?
Other hosting providers managing a wide-range of technologies require way more infrastructure and specialized staffing than needed for just IBM i. That also means they have higher costs that they have to pass on to hosting customers.
And you get to pay more for those costs even if you only need IBM i hosting.
Here are 3 common reasons other hosting providers charge more.
1) Hypervisor
Hosting providers need a simple, straight-forward way to manage their virtualized resources from a primary console, or “single pane of glass.”
A provider requires a hypervisor to manage their virtualized technologies from the primary console. And, the more diverse the operating systems under control, the more complex…and expensive…the hypervisor is. These hypervisors needed to manage a wide range of technologies are high-priced to license, pricey to deploy and costly to maintain.
They also need hypervisor experts with big salaries and expensive training.
With IBM i focus, we use the IBM PowerVM hypervisor. Our Cloud400 engineers know this IBM hypervisor cold. We have been working with this hypervisor since Logical Partitions were introduced to IBM i in 2000.
So, our IBM i focus keeps the cost of virtualized resource management way down.
2) Disk Storage
Diverse operating systems translate into diverse servers. Storage efficiency for multiple servers, other hosting providers use external disk storage, or SANs.
SANs can add several layers of complexity and expense. SANs require special hardware, software, support contracts and connectivity elements to link specific virtual storage to the virtual machines running your applications. These elements come with big-ticket price tags.
And, as you can expect, this also requires expensive SAN expert staffing and related training.
In contrast, we configure our Cloud400 IBM POWER servers with internal disk storage. First, internal storage is designed for optimal performance with IBM i and PowerVM virtualization. Second, it is way less expensive than external SAN storage. Third, internal storage is simply faster. Internal storage offers much better operation than SAN storage.
This is another way Cloud400 provides you better performance at a lower cost.
3) IBM i Focus vs. Supporting Other Technologies
Our specialty is supporting IBM i (AS400/iSeries) application hosting.
In fact, we have had an IBM i focus for 3 decades.
Some folks even call us IBM i fanatics.
Because we do not support a wide-range other technologies – such as UNIX, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, Oracle and many more – our energies are not diluted or distracted.
With a single-minded IBM i focus…and not chasing after the rapid changes and requirements of other platforms…our overhead is much lower.
When you add it all up, our IBM i focus and lower overhead translates into better value and superior IBM i support for you.
