>TCA is usually _the only_ part considered and that is why you can see so many x86 servers there.
That I disagree with, because I've been involved in some studies. >They are cheap to buy, so TCA is low. Individually, they are cheap to buy. But, when you need 1-3 for production, 1-2 for QA, 1 for development, some for backup and DR, and you need that set for each application, then software, then etc (including admin), you have a problem. Especially when the 'Total' TCA is not accounted for, since everybody counts in isolation rather than the total server farm (oh, we don't have to account for them because we already have them), then we have a political problem. >But administering many of them is different story, which is covered in TCO. Not always, many TCO studies I have been involved in don't count daily work effort for admin & maintenance, because they don't know how to do it. One study I was involved in, involved the justification to outsource. And, they believed they could save money by staff reduction. The server people grew by 50% in the first year, and the mainframe staff reduced by 10-15%, and there were a lot less of them to start with. People involved in TCO studies generally cherry-pick what to include/exclude, and I have seen them make inconsistant choices by platform, or heavily discounting some aspect, or inflating another. TCO/TCA studies are generally political, and the agenda is usually obvious, based on the conclusion reached. We did one study three times from three different sources, until we finally reached the conclusion senior management wanted. That was to justify out-sourcing. - Too busy driving to stop for gas! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
