January 3, 2011 at 9:40 am
I was looking to see if anyone had and industry average (or their own numbers) for SQL database cost per GB/TB. I don't know if anyone is doing charge back that way, but we are not.
I was thinking about including hardware, licensing, staff, disk, backup spacefor all systems and boiling it down to a cost per GB number.
I'm also curious if we can do it "cheaper" or if some other approaches were costlier than others.
(VM vs. Multi instances, etc.)
Thanks in advance,
~C
Craig Outcalt
January 3, 2011 at 10:52 am
TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is always a tricky calculation, and more than slightly subject to voodoo accounting.
Try searching for "TCO SQL Server" in Bing/Google/whatever. You'll get a ton of data. And yes, when you finish reading it, you're quite likely to understand it less than when you started. There really isn't a known cure for that.
The best bet is, compare hardware solutions separately. What you're looking for is cost vs performance vs ongoing costs vs lifespan. The easiest way to get those numbers is contact salespeople for server companies and start asking for quotes. Include ongoing maintenance plans in your quotes, and ask about expected lifespan too. Understand that this will put you on call/email lists for the rest of your life. You'll be getting e-mails twenty years from now, "Are you still interested in that Commodore 64 you asked for a quote on in 2011? We have a special deal going on those right now."
Next, take a look at costs on the editions of database engines that make sense for what you're doing. It doesn't make sense to compare the full cost of a "everything including the kitchen sink" Oracle installation vs a copy of SQL Express, for example. Nor does it make sense to compare engines that won't give you features you actually need. For example, there's no point in including MySQL in the comparison if you need to use Active Directory integrated security because of company policy. Same for SQL Azure. Neither will do that, last I checked, so it won't matter how much/little they cost.
Remember to include the cost of a DBA or DB Team in the expected cost. If there are tons of MySQL DBAs in your market, and you can get one cheap, that's very different than if the only one available to your job market is expecting $200,000 per year, plus benefits. You can get expected numbers and availability from local recruiting companies and headhunters. Don't try to work it out yourself, just call around. Remember that they will lie to you about the qualifications of their candidates, so the data approaches uselessness when it comes to accuracy, but it'll be needed anyway.
And if that's beginning to sound like a lot of work, don't worry: It's going to be at least twice as much as you dread.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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January 3, 2011 at 12:08 pm
Thanks for the response.
I can probably use TCO figures to derive what I'm looking for, but that's more for comparing products, which does need to factor in.
I was hoping to find that someone out there was already using some standards for charge back and would have a formula.
~C
Craig Outcalt
January 3, 2011 at 12:13 pm
SQLBOT (1/3/2011)
Thanks for the response.I can probably use TCO figures to derive what I'm looking for, but that's more for comparing products, which does need to factor in.
I was hoping to find that someone out there was already using some standards for charge back and would have a formula.
~C
Most businesses would describe that as proprietary data and giving that information to their competition would break anything from NDA's to all sorts of laws. How a business does business, and derives its profitable methods, are what keeps it afloat, and hopefully ahead, of its competition.
Even if you wouldn't use it that way, very few people would post it publically, and not many more would do it privately, either.
Of course, advice on creating your own is always available from friendly folks, like Gus above. 😀 You just won't get a finished product.
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January 3, 2011 at 12:32 pm
I tend to agree with Gus. Despite the good I think it would do, many companies worry that if they release this, they will give something away, or look bad. Many DBAs might not like this. If my install costs $1000/GB and yours is $500, am I not doing my job?
I think the best you can do is gather a set of numbers that makes sense for you, include some estimates, add reasons why, and present it as a value for chargeback.
January 3, 2011 at 12:37 pm
You'll have to work out the cost from TCO and expected use. As already mentioned, that's going to be an important part of the "secret sauce" for anyone in that line of business.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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