Executive Summary

TCOnow! for Windows Server Optimization allows one to quickly and accurately compare the economics of choosing a Dell Current Environment platform against a competing Dell Windows Server 2003 platform. This analysis is predicated upon using a Single workload consolidation consolidation strategy.

TCOnow! allows one to analyze the TCO for the competing platforms using the following cost categories:

· Servers

· Software

· Storage

· Network

· Services

· Training

· Facilities

· Ongoing Personnel

· Downtime

· Support and Maintenance

While one can carry out this analysis without consolidating servers many companies will find that it is an economic imperative to carry out some kind of consolidation or rationalization of their existing server environment. There are five different consolidation strategies that one may elect to select from. Each strategy has its own unique effect on the number and type of new servers necessary, software costs, services costs, and your personnel requirements. The five consolidation options available from TCOnow! include:

· Operating System Migration

· Server Migration

· Server Virtualization

· Single workload consolidation

· Multiple workload consolidation

Depending on your workload profile and your specific situation, your benefits from consolidation may include:

· Improved processor(s) utilization rate

· Reduction in number of servers due to Single workload consolidation

· Reduction in servers due to using larger 8+ SMP servers

· Reduction in number of servers due to partitioning

· The need for fewer server management staff

· A reduction in storage management staff due to simultaneous storage consolidation

· Less physical space (rent and power savings)

· Fewer unscheduled outages due to a more reliable OS

· Use of high availability clusters to reduce outage lengths

· Lower hardware and software support costs

If you are migrating or consolidating to Windows Server 2003, you may be able to achieve even greater savings due to such features as:

· Improved Windows scheduler

· Intel Xeon hyper-threading awareness

· Increased RAM addressing

· Non-uniform memory access (NUMA) support

· Distributed File System

· Volume Shadow Copy Service

· Larger cluster sizes

Financial Results

Given the information entered into CIOview’s TCOnow! software, the financial costs and benefits of deploying your chosen application using a Single workload consolidation consolidation strategy on one of two competing platforms is as follows:

Total Cost of Ownership for Current Environment : $1,072,111

Total Cost of Ownership for Windows Server 2003 : $493,467

Chart 1: Total Cost of Ownership over Time

The Total Cost of Ownership for your chosen application using your selected platform is based upon the assumptions in Table 1:

Table 1: Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Assumptions

TCO Assumptions
Implement a SAN?	Implement a SAN
Hours of operations	9x5
Basis for costing downtime	File and Print
Size for current or future needs	Current needs

Table 1 represents the most obvious factors that can immediately impact the TCO of either solution. However, there is a wide range of other factors such as workload, type of server etc., that can all contribute to a significantly different TCO result. A large part of this report is dedicated to explaining what factors most influence the TCO and how these can be manipulated to ensure that the optimal platform is selected.

Costs

Table 2 depicts the cost categories that have been selected for this analysis.

Table 2: Cost Categories Selected for Analysis Purposes

Cost Category	Included?
Servers	Yes
Software	Yes
Storage	Yes
Network	Yes
Services	Yes
Training	Yes
Facilities	Yes
Ongoing Personnel	Yes
Downtime