Does Moving to the Cloud Really Leave you on Cloud 9

DOES MOVING TO THE CLOUD REALLY LEAVE YOU ON CLOUD 9? Measure the promise of the cloud in real financial terms You're an IT business leader, you're savvy, and thinking about living beyond the edge. That means you're probably investigating cloud computing. Hey, no judgment here if you're not already in the cloud. It's a big deal, and you're probably holding out because you haven't found an effective way to compare deploying in the cloud versus on-premise. Well today, you're in luck. Because there's a tool that can help you compare the bottom line of these two potential futures. It's called a Projected Path TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). What is TCO in IT? Although many companies factor TCO into the purchasing equation, they often underestimate the hidden TCO is used to calculate the total cost of purchasing and operating a technology product or service over its useful life costs of a technology solution. TCO provides a way to evaluate technology costs that might not be reflected or apparent in up-front pricing. How is a cloud TCO comparison different than a normal TCO comparison? A cloud TCO comparison is fundamentally different because it compares capex to opex, cost of capital, peoples' time and productivity, and the cost of each employee's downtime. This approach also considers technology's lifecycle, not just initial purchase. The lifetime expense of technology is always higher than the initial purchase. It lets us identify subjective opportunities or indirect benefits. To make the comparison even easier, break them into vaults. We call them "vaults" because when organizations unlock them, they can reap huge savings. UNLOCK THE 7 VAULTS OF CLOUD TCO PHYSICAL DATA CENTER 1 AND HARDWARE What is it? What you're not taking into account: Add up the hardware costs and divide them by the period of time you plan to measure your TCo. That's your cost for vault one. Capacity (too much or too little), technology exposure (e.g., cheap disk versus performance grade), redundancy (do you have any?), and the proverbial crystal ball (did you predict the future properly?). IIII Costs include: Servers, RAM, processors, disks, network switches, firewalls, cables, racks, etc. Don't forget: On-premise hardware is a dead-money expense. 的 Ka7-SABIMAR2412L SOFTWARE 2 LICENSING POWER AND 3 What is it? Add the initial cost of the licensing to the main IT costs to fix, upgrade, and maintain the licensing. ENVIRONMENTAL What is it? Add all the costs of powering your data center, and compare it to what a cloud services provider would charge you in the cloud. Costs include: Hypervisor licensing; application virtualization technologies, such as Citrix XenApp or Microsoft RDS; IDS agents; SANS or NAS licensing; server licenses; and many, many Costs include: Electricity, UPS, cooling and HVAC, etc. This is often overlooked by small- or mid-sized businesses who lump it in as the cost of doing business. more. These costs are often overlooked. The task of managing these licenses is also a cost. Don't forget: Don't forget: Be honest about what you pay for and factor it into your equation. HVAC and cooling can make up 50 percent of the cost in larger data centers for this vault. HARDWARE MAINTENANCE 4 AND SOFTWARE ASSURANCE What is it? Add up all your maintenance and software assurance contracts. Costs include: Current maintenance and software assurance contracts. This is often overlooked, and it shouldn't be, because it comes to about 20 percent of the original cost of the equipment/software licensing annually. Don't forget: As the hardware and software ages, the cost for their maintenance increases. Cloud computing providers bundle the support costs on their services while protecting you from technology obsolescence. SUPPORT AND PERSONNEL 6 What is it? Consider what you could gain by eliminating the time-drain IT resources spend doing tedious and useless tasks, such as cleansing a desktop that has DISASTER RECOVERY AND BUSINESS CONTINUITY been infected with a virus or spending hours trying to figure out why the green light on the server started blinking red. So instead of paying them for menial work, they can focus on mobility, apps, or whatever else you need them to work on. What is it? Calculate your costs for maintaining the continuity of your business by factoring in every redundant piece of equipment. Next, factor in the savings for the elimination of downtime. How much does Costs include: What you pay those people who are in charge of maintaining your data center. The cloud provides a means for centralizing support or mitigating some aspects of it entirely by outsourcing the basic infrastructure. it cost your business to be down for 4 hours? How many hours are you down in a typical year? Finally, determine your productivity gains for working faster and better with redundant services. Don't forget: IT support is still required when you move to the cloud, but it lets you make better use of the resources you already have, especially when it comes to employees. Costs include: The costs of licensing each piece of equipment, extra bandwidth, data center space, your testing procedures, and how all of these compare to cloud-sourcing some or all of it. This is often overlooked ?? because companies tend to put a disaster plan in place without considering how they are going to meet their recovery objectives. THE 7 INTANGIBLES What is it? This area includes the things that many dismiss as a cost that is just too hard to quantify. Costs include: What is cost per-employee per-hour of downtime? If you are in a power-challenged area, can you reduce or mitigate this entirely? How much does a lost transaction or sales order cost your firm on average? Do you have risks for being out of compliance to regulatory standards? Are you concerned about technology lock-in or have you guessed wrong on a technology purchase in the past that now sits useless in your closet? There you have it. Seven sure-fire areas that you need to measure before you consider a move to the cloud. And if you're still confused, bring it up with a cloud service provider! Find out how much you can save by going to the cloud. Get Evolve IP's FREE TCO calculator and guide: EVOLVE P www.EvolvelP.net/TCO THE CLOUD SERVICES COMPANY DOES MOVING TO THE CLOUD REALLY LEAVE YOU ON CLOUD 9? Measure the promise of the cloud in real financial terms You're an IT business leader, you're savvy, and thinking about living beyond the edge. That means you're probably investigating cloud computing. Hey, no judgment here if you're not already in the cloud. It's a big deal, and you're probably holding out because you haven't found an effective way to compare deploying in the cloud versus on-premise. Well today, you're in luck. Because there's a tool that can help you compare the bottom line of these two potential futures. It's called a Projected Path TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). What is TCO in IT? Although many companies factor TCO into the purchasing equation, they often underestimate the hidden TCO is used to calculate the total cost of purchasing and operating a technology product or service over its useful life costs of a technology solution. TCO provides a way to evaluate technology costs that might not be reflected or apparent in up-front pricing. How is a cloud TCO comparison different than a normal TCO comparison? A cloud TCO comparison is fundamentally different because it compares capex to opex, cost of capital, peoples' time and productivity, and the cost of each employee's downtime. This approach also considers technology's lifecycle, not just initial purchase. The lifetime expense of technology is always higher than the initial purchase. It lets us identify subjective opportunities or indirect benefits. To make the comparison even easier, break them into vaults. We call them "vaults" because when organizations unlock them, they can reap huge savings. UNLOCK THE 7 VAULTS OF CLOUD TCO PHYSICAL DATA CENTER 1 AND HARDWARE What is it? What you're not taking into account: Add up the hardware costs and divide them by the period of time you plan to measure your TCo. That's your cost for vault one. Capacity (too much or too little), technology exposure (e.g., cheap disk versus performance grade), redundancy (do you have any?), and the proverbial crystal ball (did you predict the future properly?). IIII Costs include: Servers, RAM, processors, disks, network switches, firewalls, cables, racks, etc. Don't forget: On-premise hardware is a dead-money expense. 的 Ka7-SABIMAR2412L SOFTWARE 2 LICENSING POWER AND 3 What is it? Add the initial cost of the licensing to the main IT costs to fix, upgrade, and maintain the licensing. ENVIRONMENTAL What is it? Add all the costs of powering your data center, and compare it to what a cloud services provider would charge you in the cloud. Costs include: Hypervisor licensing; application virtualization technologies, such as Citrix XenApp or Microsoft RDS; IDS agents; SANS or NAS licensing; server licenses; and many, many Costs include: Electricity, UPS, cooling and HVAC, etc. This is often overlooked by small- or mid-sized businesses who lump it in as the cost of doing business. more. These costs are often overlooked. The task of managing these licenses is also a cost. Don't forget: Don't forget: Be honest about what you pay for and factor it into your equation. HVAC and cooling can make up 50 percent of the cost in larger data centers for this vault. HARDWARE MAINTENANCE 4 AND SOFTWARE ASSURANCE What is it? Add up all your maintenance and software assurance contracts. Costs include: Current maintenance and software assurance contracts. This is often overlooked, and it shouldn't be, because it comes to about 20 percent of the original cost of the equipment/software licensing annually. Don't forget: As the hardware and software ages, the cost for their maintenance increases. Cloud computing providers bundle the support costs on their services while protecting you from technology obsolescence. SUPPORT AND PERSONNEL 6 What is it? Consider what you could gain by eliminating the time-drain IT resources spend doing tedious and useless tasks, such as cleansing a desktop that has DISASTER RECOVERY AND BUSINESS CONTINUITY been infected with a virus or spending hours trying to figure out why the green light on the server started blinking red. So instead of paying them for menial work, they can focus on mobility, apps, or whatever else you need them to work on. What is it? Calculate your costs for maintaining the continuity of your business by factoring in every redundant piece of equipment. Next, factor in the savings for the elimination of downtime. How much does Costs include: What you pay those people who are in charge of maintaining your data center. The cloud provides a means for centralizing support or mitigating some aspects of it entirely by outsourcing the basic infrastructure. it cost your business to be down for 4 hours? How many hours are you down in a typical year? Finally, determine your productivity gains for working faster and better with redundant services. Don't forget: IT support is still required when you move to the cloud, but it lets you make better use of the resources you already have, especially when it comes to employees. Costs include: The costs of licensing each piece of equipment, extra bandwidth, data center space, your testing procedures, and how all of these compare to cloud-sourcing some or all of it. This is often overlooked ?? because companies tend to put a disaster plan in place without considering how they are going to meet their recovery objectives. THE 7 INTANGIBLES What is it? This area includes the things that many dismiss as a cost that is just too hard to quantify. Costs include: What is cost per-employee per-hour of downtime? If you are in a power-challenged area, can you reduce or mitigate this entirely? How much does a lost transaction or sales order cost your firm on average? Do you have risks for being out of compliance to regulatory standards? Are you concerned about technology lock-in or have you guessed wrong on a technology purchase in the past that now sits useless in your closet? There you have it. Seven sure-fire areas that you need to measure before you consider a move to the cloud. And if you're still confused, bring it up with a cloud service provider! Find out how much you can save by going to the cloud. Get Evolve IP's FREE TCO calculator and guide: EVOLVE P www.EvolvelP.net/TCO THE CLOUD SERVICES COMPANY