machine hour cost in data center?

Question

Anyone knows rough machine hour cost in large data centers (like those of Amazon, Google or Microsoft)? Cost I mean rough real cost to data center provider (like those of Amazon, Google or Microsoft), not the charge to data center user. Appreciate if any document could be provided.

thanks in advance, George

SF or off topic, I'm leaning former just to be cautious, but realize that the data is probably not public and highly guarded. — Josh K, Oct 08 '10 at 04:37
Would you publish all the information your competitors need to know in order to undercut you to a level you couldn't respond to without losing money? — Rob Moir, Oct 08 '10 at 08:05
I think it would be more useful to compare the end-user costs. — bobdiaes, Oct 08 '10 at 08:16

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 08 '10 at 08:16

Oh dude, there's literally no way of answering this question.

Firstly because these people don't publish that kind of thing (for the following reasons), secondly because they have data centres of all types littered all over the world and thirdly because "cost" is an incredibly subjective issue - what do you include? just capex? if so for what? include opex? local tax rebates? money-cost? the other hundreds of other classes of 'cost'? I bet these companies have no idea exactly how much it costs them as a whole per data centre let alone on a per machine (and again, what type of machine?) cost. I have ~20 data centres and I'd struggle just working out the most basic of costs, what the tin bills were.

If you've got some specific questions please come back but you're out of luck on this one sorry.

machine hour cost in data center?

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