SMEs targeted for cloud

cloud, there's no such pussyfooting around from Telstra: it has launched a small business cloud service that ranges upwards from A$200 per month, The Register reports.

The Telstra cloud entry-level pricing will get you two CPUs, 4GB of RAM, 100GB of storage, and 40GB of traffic to and from your personal cloud. And, in a move that's sure to cause at least some confusion in a market that's still unsure what 'cloud' actually means, each of these (except traffic) is qualified by time.

There's also a pay-as-you-go option, with prices starting at $0.05 for one CPU and 1GB RAM, $0.0003 per GB-hour for storage, and $1 per terabyte of Internet traffic, iTWire says.

A range of options is offered, including software (eg. SQL Server 2008 R2 from $0.75 per server, per hour), mail relaying (starting at $0.0015 per e-mail), VLANs ($200 set-up fee, but no ongoing charges), firewall tiers ($0.06 per hour after a $50 set-up fee), and a bulk data import service ($250 per drive plus $0.05c per gigabyte).

"Independent modelling undertaken for Telstra shows a SME using the new service could save up to $7 000 a year over three years compared to what they would normally spend setting up on-premises servers," said Telstra's business group MD, Will Irving. "Moving to Telstra's cloud means they can use 'virtual servers' to safely and securely store crucial data off their premises, without the need to pay for a team of IT experts."