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In the last 15 years that I've seen this type of clickbait, 100% of the time it's written by someone who doesn't know how to make a TCO calculation. Of course,

In the last 15 years that I've seen this type of clickbait, 100% of the time it's written by someone who doesn't know how to make a TCO calculation. Of course, this time was no different. Should have saved myself the agony after reading the first sentence: "Clouds for IT infrastructure are so popular lately that moving into the cloud has become a trend.". Please.

nik736 4y ago
So let us know what is wrong and how a proper TCO calculation looks like. What's missing?
- dtech 4y ago
  Anything that you have to do "extra" compared to managing the hardware yourself. E.g. this article is missing even basic stuff like the (prorated) salary costs of employees buying, installing and servicing the hardware.
  - humanistbot 4y ago
    > E.g. this article is missing even basic stuff like the (prorated) salary costs of employees buying, installing and servicing the hardware. You say that like you don't need a dedicated team to manage AWS.
  - OtomotO 4y ago
    Ah, so now the developers will service the AWS instances from your end which means they can work less on delivering new features... also left out of the equation quite often :)
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      They’ll also wait less for IT to service their tickets requesting new infrastructure, which leads to more new feature development. There are a variety of trade-offs; not all of them have the same sign.
  - oxfordmale 4y ago
    For example, hardware doesn't just survive five years. As the hardware ages, the failure rate will increase. This calculation doesn't even mention this at all.
    - thesh4d0w 4y ago
      They're using Dell and I would assume bought a 5 year warranty, so they don't have to factor that in.
      - oxfordmale 4y ago
        Regardless of a warranty, the hardware still fails and needs to be replaced. That requires maintenance. Beyond that, can they afford to wait for Dell to fix the faulty device or send a replacement, or do they need several spare units to address outages quickly.
  - fidgewidge 4y ago
    Do you think that would make any impact at all when they'd be looking at a $400M difference in hardware costs? People these days act like you need 5 PhDs to plug in a computer, it's insane.
- quest88 4y ago
  Yea, give us your template antimius3000.
KyeRussell 4y ago
Yep. A completely natural instance of “computer nerd thinks that their expertise is transferrable”. The tech industry is rife with this sort of thinking.
- linksnapzz 4y ago
  In this case, the nerd has a point, and is probably correct.
manv1 4y ago
The thing is, his TCO would include training, rebuilding their existing processes and procedures, and having to run stuff in parallel for a while. That's not including a re-architecture and the impact it would have on their stuff today. Sometimes all people need is a big box in a data center. Management of the environment is already a sunk cost. The hardware is already expensed. They don't care about scalability/DR/etc. From a hard dollar point of view staying colo makes sense. Plus politically they don't want to do it, which is really the only point of view that mattered. If they needed to have actual DR then the numbers would be different.

nik736 4y ago

So let us know what is wrong and how a proper TCO calculation looks like. What's missing?

dtech 4y ago
Anything that you have to do "extra" compared to managing the hardware yourself. E.g. this article is missing even basic stuff like the (prorated) salary costs of employees buying, installing and servicing the hardware.
- humanistbot 4y ago
  > E.g. this article is missing even basic stuff like the (prorated) salary costs of employees buying, installing and servicing the hardware. You say that like you don't need a dedicated team to manage AWS.
- OtomotO 4y ago
  Ah, so now the developers will service the AWS instances from your end which means they can work less on delivering new features... also left out of the equation quite often :)
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    They’ll also wait less for IT to service their tickets requesting new infrastructure, which leads to more new feature development. There are a variety of trade-offs; not all of them have the same sign.
- oxfordmale 4y ago
  For example, hardware doesn't just survive five years. As the hardware ages, the failure rate will increase. This calculation doesn't even mention this at all.
  - thesh4d0w 4y ago
    They're using Dell and I would assume bought a 5 year warranty, so they don't have to factor that in.
    - oxfordmale 4y ago
      Regardless of a warranty, the hardware still fails and needs to be replaced. That requires maintenance. Beyond that, can they afford to wait for Dell to fix the faulty device or send a replacement, or do they need several spare units to address outages quickly.
- fidgewidge 4y ago
  Do you think that would make any impact at all when they'd be looking at a $400M difference in hardware costs? People these days act like you need 5 PhDs to plug in a computer, it's insane.
quest88 4y ago
Yea, give us your template antimius3000.

KyeRussell 4y ago

Yep. A completely natural instance of “computer nerd thinks that their expertise is transferrable”. The tech industry is rife with this sort of thinking.

linksnapzz 4y ago
In this case, the nerd has a point, and is probably correct.

manv1 4y ago

The thing is, his TCO would include training, rebuilding their existing processes and procedures, and having to run stuff in parallel for a while. That's not including a re-architecture and the impact it would have on their stuff today. Sometimes all people need is a big box in a data center. Management of the environment is already a sunk cost. The hardware is already expensed. They don't care about scalability/DR/etc. From a hard dollar point of view staying colo makes sense. Plus politically they don't want to do it, which is really the only point of view that mattered. If they needed to have actual DR then the numbers would be different.