Are you tired of the manual effort to manage your IT environment or the redundancy of using multiple point solutions? Are the risks of a security breach or the costs of lost productivity becoming too high to ignore? Is your existing systems management solution too complicated to use or too expensive to upgrade? Whether you are looking to invest in a systems lifecycle management solution for the first time or looking to replace your existing solution, be sure you consider all financial components.
To continue my series of posts on “Best Practices in Lifecycle Management,” a new comparison paper from Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. (EMA), I want to highlight the Financial Comparison section of the paper. It shows you not only the dollars you’ll spend on the solution itself, but also the other costs involved in executing a successful systems lifecycle management implementation.
You’ll need to take several types of costs into account:
- Pricing model — This includes the list price, which varies from one-size-fits-all to graduated pricing tailored to the size of your organization. It also includes the annual maintenance costs to keep the product up to date.
- Infrastructure costs — How much additional hardware and software will you need to support your systems lifecycle management solution? This too varies widely from solution to solution, with the number of server-plus-OS configurations, client access licenses, database licenses and maintenance contracts you have to put in place.
- Operational and training cost — Systems lifecycle management products that require more infrastructure will almost certainly require more people to administer that infrastructure. How many more people will you need to add to your IT staff? What will it cost to train them? Is there a way to get around adding staff?
- Non-computer device support — With more smart, non-computer devices connecting to your network, lifecycle management now extends beyond PCs and servers to devices like printers, projectors, scanners and even universal power supplies. If you choose a product that supports those devices, your cost calculations will have to include them as well.
For each of these costs, the paper builds out a total implementation cost based on size of organization, number of servers, length of maintenance contract, number of locations and other variables. It’s easy to follow and it’s designed to help you pencil out your own costs.
Get your free copy of “Best Practices in Lifecycle Management” and have a look at pages 14 through 18 in the PDF for EMA’s detailed cost comparison of four products, including Dell KACE Appliances.
