Cloud computing has been recently a trending topic beyond the technological field, due to its implementation and expansion thanks to the internet revolution. Although it has reached end-users’ hands during the past two years, the technology has been used for a longer period in the business world. In a scenario where cost-cutting strategies and start-up companies seem to have an increasing importance in global economy, cloud computing has been one of the pillars of many business’ success in recent times. Companies like Netflix, Instagram or Spotify are recent examples of how an enterprise can grow spectacularly quick and become a market-leader basing its business activity on the cloud technology. This master thesis tries to explain how companies should behave when acquiring a cloud service. Due to the wideness of the cloud market, the specific focus of the work is infrastructure as a service, and pay-as-you-go model was chosen for the study due to the novelty it introduces in the information technology market. Apart from technical details, the economic point of view of cloud computing has also been researched, as not only providers care about how their service have to be priced, but also companies want to predict the expenditure to make in their brand new information service. Through the pages of the work, the predecessors of cloud computing are presented as well as the theories appeared to explain its costs and accounting aspects, to finally explain how cloud computing changed the role. After a brief introduction to cloud computing and its different service models, a market analysis of different providers is performed, to extract the patterns and peculiarities of the actual situation of cloudmarket. Transferring the knowledge obtained in the market analysis, an accounting model is developed, based on costs categories and factors and a metering framework. Finally, a case study is performed applying the model to the market situation extracted from the market analysis.

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