Service Description

What CloudVerdict is

CloudVerdict is a subscription service that compares the cost of object storage across cloud providers. A subscriber describes a workload: how much data, how it is accessed, how long it is kept, and what happens to it. CloudVerdict prices that workload against the options each provider publishes and shows what each would cost, with the considerations that apply to each option.

It covers the cloud providers a subscriber can choose when describing a workload, which the Pricing page names. Providers are added from time to time, and each is covered from the day it can be chosen.

What a result is

A result is an estimate, not a quotation. It is built from the list prices those providers publish, applied to the workload as it was described. It is not an offer, it is not a price any provider has agreed, and it does not bind anyone.

Several things can make real spending differ from an estimate:

• A negotiated agreement. A discount, a committed-use agreement, an enterprise agreement, or credits will not be reflected, because CloudVerdict reads published list prices and does not know what a subscriber has agreed with a provider.
• The workload as described. A figure prices what was entered. Real access patterns vary, and a difference between the two is a difference in the answer.
• When the prices were read. Providers change prices. Every result states how old the prices behind it are.
• The currency. A provider's prices are taken in the currency it publishes them in. Where a provider publishes a list in the currency a result is asked for, that list is used; where it publishes none in that currency, its prices are converted at the European Central Bank's euro reference rates of the day the result states, which the bank publishes for information only. A provider bills in its own currency at its own rate.

What CloudVerdict will not do

It will not show a charge it cannot price as zero. Where an option cannot be fully priced, it is marked as partial and says what is missing. A missing figure shown as nothing is worse than no figure, because it makes an option look cheaper than it is.

It will not hide a consideration to make a ranking cleaner. Each option carries the characteristics its provider publishes, and every warning and note that applies, each with a source. A consideration never changes where an option ranks on cost, and cost never suppresses a consideration.

It will not rank by anything other than what it says it ranks by. No provider pays for placement, for inclusion, or for a position in a result. See Pricing Terms for the commitment on neutrality.

Accuracy, and how it is described

Prices are read from each provider's own published sources: its price feed, or, where a provider publishes no feed, its own published pages, read automatically. A result states how old those prices are and where they were read from. A result is not checked against a provider's own calculator.

We do not warrant that a price is current at the moment a result is read. We do say when it was read.

Availability of providers and options

Which providers a subscriber can select may change. A platform administrator can make a provider unselectable, either across the platform or for one subscriber, and the product shows the provider with a message saying it is unavailable rather than quietly dropping it. A provider that is not selectable is never priced at zero and never ranked last: it is not in the comparison, and the comparison says so.

A saved version keeps what it priced, including where a provider it covered has since become unselectable.

Describing a workload

A subscriber chooses the providers and regions to compare, up to a limit across them all, and which storage classes, or every class a region sells; describes the data, how it is read and sent, how long it is kept, and the copies kept; and chooses the decision horizon and the currency. A figure left blank takes a stated default and is marked Assumed on the result.

On Standard and Premium a subscriber can hold a comparison to requirements, each a fact a provider publishes about a storage option, asked as a yes or a no: that data can be read without restoring it first, that it survives the loss of an availability zone, and that it survives the loss of a region. An option whose provider says it does not meet a requirement is left out of the ranking, and the result names it with the requirement and the provider page that says so. An option whose provider publishes nothing on the point is kept and marked as not published, so a comparison held to requirements does not show that every option in it meets them. Where a provider says an option meets a requirement only once something has happened, such as a failover to a copy in a second region, the result says what it takes. A requirement is the subscriber's own choice of what to compare. It is not advice on which storage suits a customer, and not a recommendation.

The storage guide

The storage guide says how each storage option behaves, where a result says what it costs: the words each provider uses, how an object is written and read, how data moves between storage classes, and which charges each step gives rise to, by name. It covers the providers a subscriber can choose when describing a workload, and is part of every tier.

Every statement in it is what the provider publishes about its own service, with the provider's page beside it. It states no price. It is not advice that an option suits a subscriber's purpose, and it is not a statement by the provider. A provider can change its service before the guide is next checked against the provider's page, and the guide says when each provider's pages were last checked.

The providers' names and the names of their services are their own trade marks, used here to name what is described.

What a subscriber gets, by tier

What each tier includes is set out in Pricing Terms and on the pricing page. Features that depend on tier include the detail of inputs available, how many new use cases can be created each month, whether results can be exported as a PDF or a CSV, whether a result can be exported as an executive brief, whether the checklist in Before you commit can be exported as a PDF, whether saved versions and history are kept, and whether a comparison can be held to requirements. Every tier can import a CSV exported from CloudVerdict, which starts a new use case. Every tier includes the storage guide and Before you commit, which says what to weigh beside the price before committing to a provider; it is general information, not legal advice, and it compares and prices no provider. Exporting its checklist as a PDF is part of the tiers that carry a PDF export, Standard and Premium.

What an export carries

A PDF is a report of 1 version of a use case: the verdict, every option ranked with its figures, what each pays for, how the cost builds, every characteristic, warning, and note with its source, what was priced, where the prices came from and how old they were, and every assumption. Where 2 or more options were set side by side when it was downloaded, it also sets them out together in a section of its own, after the ranking: each option's standing, its total and how it stands against the others, its figures, what its provider publishes, each requirement, and each warning and note by name, each set out in full with its source in the appendix as before. It states that its rates and billing rules come from CloudVerdict and not from the subscriber who exported it, and every page between the front and back covers carries the Made with CloudVerdict™ footer. Its closing page carries the copyright, trade mark, and company notices, and it closes on a back cover.

An executive brief is a PDF of the same version for whoever signs off the cost, on Premium: the finding, what the cheapest option, or the only option priced in full, costs over the period, in its first year where the period is longer, and in its first and last monthly bill, the options set against each other, what each costs in each year, any recovery or exit cost, and what to check. It is drawn from the same figures as the report, counts each option's warnings and names those on the cheapest, and leaves every warning and note with its source, and every assumption, to the report. It carries the report's cover, footer, closing notices, and back cover.

The checklist in Before you commit, exported as a PDF on Standard and Premium, is for filling in on paper. It names no provider, states no figure, and carries nothing of the subscriber's but the name of their subscription, to say who it was prepared for. It carries the report's cover, footer, closing notices, and back cover.

A CSV carries the same version as 1 table: every input, every assumption with its source, the pricing dates, and every result, with its warnings and notes. It names the subscriber it was exported for, and every figure in it is CloudVerdict's own, worked out on our servers and not by the person who exported it. A charge under half a penny is written as a figure, and never as nothing.

On Free there is no export in the product. A subscriber on Free can ask for one, and is sent their use cases, each version we hold of them, and their results in a structured file.

The file sent on request, to a subscriber on any plan who asks for their data, who is switching to another service, or who is on Free and asks for an export, is 1 JSON file. Each section names what it holds and says what it is, and holds every row as we hold it: the subscription and the account, each use case, every version with its inputs and its result, and the records about the subscription. It leaves out who on our staff did something, naming an operator as an operator, and it holds none of the pricing data, the billing rules, or how a figure is worked out.

The document is CloudVerdict's own and carries its brand. A subscriber's logo or mark appears on nothing the product renders or exports; their name appears on a PDF only to say who it was prepared for.

Your account

A person agrees to the Subscription Terms, the Pricing Terms, and the Acceptable Use Policy when they create their account, by ticking a box that names each, having been shown the Privacy Notice; a subscription with no record of agreeing is asked once, before anything else. What was agreed is kept with the subscription: which documents, which version of each, and when.

A subscriber buys, changes, and cancels their own paid plan from Your account, which shows the plan, what it costs, the period paid for, when it renews, and whether the last payment was taken. Payment is made on our payment processor's own secure page, and payment details and invoices are on its billing page, reached from Your account. The Subscription Terms say when a change or a cancellation takes effect and what is refunded.

A subscriber changes their own name, password, and an optional second factor, and closes their own account, from Your account. An account that pays for a plan can be closed only once the plan has ended. An account they closed can be reopened by them until its deletion date, unless we have kept it closed for a reason the Subscription Terms allow. A use case can be deleted and restored until a date set from the same period.

Support

Product support is support@apexedgesalesengineering.com.

Support does not receive legal notices, data rights requests, or security reports. Each of those has its own address, listed on Company Information, because each has a clock running on it that the support queue is not where anybody watches.

Contact points

Each kind of correspondence has its own address. Using the right one matters: a data rights request has a statutory clock running on it, and a security report should not wait in a support queue.