1. A method to produce a resource cost, wherein the resource cost relates to execution of a first virtual machine at a data center, the method comprising: receiving, by an estimator, a first representation that represents contents of an image of the first virtual machine, wherein the contents of the image of the first virtual machine are stored in a memory associated with the first virtual machine; receiving, by the estimator, a second representation that represents contents of an instance of a second virtual machine currently being executed by the data center; identifying, by the estimator, an amount of common resource requirements shared between the contents of the image represented by the first representation and the contents of the instance represented by the second representation; producing, based on the identified common resource requirements, a deduplication value for the first virtual machine, wherein the deduplication value is produced by comparison between the contents of the image represented by the first representation and the contents of the instance represented by the second representation, and wherein the deduplication value indicates a degree of deduplication associated with the common resource requirements at the data center; transforming, by the estimator, the deduplication value to produce the resource cost by evaluation of the degree of deduplication indicated by the deduplication value, wherein the evaluation of the degree of deduplication includes a use of the deduplication value to determine a number of contents of the image of the first virtual machine that are executable for a same cost as that of the instance of the second virtual machine currently being executed by the data center, and wherein the number of contents is indicated by the resource cost; generating, by the estimator, a recommendation based on the number of contents of the image of the first virtual machine that are executable at the data center, wherein the recommendation includes indications of one or more resource costs that include the produced resource cost; and executing, by the estimator, the first virtual machine at the data center based on the generated recommendation, wherein the execution of the first virtual machine at the data center is performed by referencing to the contents of the image of the first virtual machine, and wherein referencing to the contents of the image of the first virtual machine facilitates a reduction in network traffic related to transportation of the contents of the image of the first virtual machine from the memory, associated with the first virtual machine, to the data center.