When discussing the public cloud, it is often argued that it is a more expensive option than traditional infrastructure. This article provides objective data to compare the cost of public cloud in the AOC during the year 2025 with the cost of an equivalent traditional infrastructureThe benefits of the public cloud, which in the AOC are considered fully proven, are not evaluated, but only real and comparable figures for the year 2025 are presented so that the data speaks for itself.
By 2025, 80% of AOC services will be hosted in the public cloud (AWS), with a total capacity of 218 virtual machines, 721 vCPUs, 1.5 TB of RAM, and 341 TB of storage, covering development, pre-production, and production environments. This capacity forms the basis of both the actual cost of the public cloud and the estimate of its equivalent on traditional infrastructure, calculated from AOC's 2024 data.
The annual cost of the public cloud associated with this infrastructure has been €1.043.313,87 plus VAT, an amount that includes computing, storage, backups, software licenses, managed services, and recurring maintenance and operation costs implicit in the public cloud model.
To have a traditional infrastructure with equivalent capacities, the estimated annual cost – calculated from AOC data for the year 2024 – would have been €979.500 plus VAT. This amount results from adding the accommodation in two CPDs (€311.000), licensing and virtualization (€187.000), the amortization of the hardware over six years (€160.000), the maintenance of the hardware (€20.000) and the technical resources necessary for the management and operation of the platforms (€301.500). In the new model, these technical profiles have been redirected towards project manager functions for new lines of business or the reinforcement of the AOC's cybersecurity teams.
It should be noted that, in the traditional model, the infrastructure is shared between services, so an incident in one service can affect others. In the public cloud, on the other hand, each service has its own infrastructure and the isolation between environments is total at the computing, network and storage level.
Impact on the efficiency of the public and technological management model
Beyond the strictly economic comparison, the public cloud model has generated significant impacts on the operational efficiency and responsiveness of the organization, with direct effects on the service to public entities and citizens.
First, the availability of on-demand infrastructure has allowed for a substantial reduction in the provisioning times for new services and environments, from weeks or months in traditional models to hours or days in the public cloud. This agility facilitates the launch of new digital initiatives and rapid adaptation to regulatory changes or emerging needs of public entities.
Secondly, the model has contributed to an improvement in the resilience and continuity of the service. The distributed architecture and isolation per service reduce the impact of incidents and allow for faster recovery, increasing the levels of availability perceived by end users.
At the management level, the transformation of the role of technical teams towards functions with greater added value —such as project management, innovation or cybersecurity— has allowed the use of internal talent to be optimized and directed towards strategic objectives. This translates into a more proactive administration, with greater capacity to promote new digital services and improve existing ones.
In addition, the pay-per-use model introduces a greater transparència and control over spending, facilitating data-based decision-making and aligning costs with actual service use. This feature is especially relevant in public environments, where efficiency in resource management is a key element.
Finally, the public cloud favors technological standardization and component reuse, which simplifies interoperability between services and administrations, and accelerates the implementation of shared solutions.
Taken together, these factors show that, beyond the differences in direct cost, the public cloud model provides significant gains in efficiency, flexibility and transformation capacity, key elements for the evolution of digital services in the public sector.
