Pre-Design Stage Cost Estimation for Cloud Services

Cloud computing is being increasingly employed to build systems. Rapid cost estimation for such systems is necessary to start new business. Here, the "Pay-Per-Use" billing model has been established, and providers offer various strategic pricing. There are many cost structures, so the users need to consider many pricing options when estimating system costs. Although companies often want to estimate the cost of their systems, it is difficult to obtain a comprehensive estimation that takes into account all of the components. Previously, researchers have implemented simulation-based and analytical approaches to solve this problem. In this study, we developed a cost-estimation method that employs directed acyclic graph (DAG)-based representation and matrix operations. Our method emphasizes simplicity through the use of a systematic procedure that can estimate the costs of new services at the pre-design stage.