Understanding All of the Costs Involved with Owning Servers.

If you have a business, you will understand how important a quality server system is to your business's success. However, a quality server for your business isn't something that comes without its costs. Understanding how much your server is costing your company is an important budget item when it comes to planning how much money your company is spending on an annual basis.

It's likely that you aren't accounting for all of the expenses that your business encounters when it comes to keeping your server up and running. The chances are that your company's server is costing you more money than you might think.

In the end, there are two main options that you can consider when choosing how to manage your server. It's important to understand the costs associated with each. Whether you choose on-premises or IaaS, understanding how much your company spends on their server helps you determine if you are spending your money as effectively as possible.

How Do I Calculate How Much I Am Spending On Our Company's Server?

You will have to look at all of the costs involved with running your server, including those that are direct, indirect, and hidden. The following are examples of each type of cost:

Direct Cost:

Your direct costs include equipment that is needed to keep the server up and running regularly such as the required hardware that keeps the entire system running. The space you rent or pay to store the equipment as well would be another direct cost of running your server.

Indirect Costs:

Your indirect costs include items such as the salaries that you are paying your IT employees and other staff who work with the hardware or fix machinery needed to keep your server up and running.

Hidden Cost:

Your hidden costs include things such as lost productivity time when employees are off task or are getting paid for things that they aren't supposed to be doing.

These are all examples of costs that are related to what it costs to keep your company's servers running. Some of them may not be things that you think about off-hand, but they all affect what you are paying to keep your business running.

What is the Cost of Moving My Cloud?

Whether you are spending quite a bit or a little less on your server, a quality cost calculator tool will help you understand what you're spending on your company's server. Our calculator can help you come up with a solution for your cloud that works on your budget. You can determine what RAM and disc space you will need for your operations and the other resources that you will need to keep your servers running smoothly.

You will also need to come up with your own SBM solution. Determine how much downtime you can afford for your servers to have and compare your numbers to what other solutions would offer if you want to save your company money by using a cloud server. If you can get your downtime to a lower number than the other companies, than its probably a great idea for you to choose an on-premises server solution, as long as you can maintain the server to work when you need it to.

Some companies provide a 98% availability while other providers guarantee a 99.9% availability. Determine how much it would cost your company to lose a percentage point of availability each year. You can do this by determining what percentage you are willing to settle for based on what it would cost to get to that level of server availability. Finding a point with which you are satisfied is a key factor in determining what you spend versus how much downtime you are willing to tolerate.

Five-Year Comparisons:

Assuming you will replace your server about once every five years, use your calculations to determine the cost of what you would pay to be able to refresh your servers on that schedule. Our findings were that a company would save about 79% of what they are spending on their IT department by moving to a cloud server option. However, you have to determine if this is right for your company before you make the final move. The server will have to offer you perameters that you can work within to make the move worthwhile, and you have to be satisfied with the level of server availability you have if you select this option.

Understanding the Entire Picture:

Finally, you must understand the entire picture when it comes to transferring your business's servers to a cloud server. Key elements in your decision will include variables such as server availability, technical support, and costs involved with refreshing your servers (every five years or often as you choose to do so).

In the end, it's up to you to determine if this is a viable option for your company and if you will save enough money that it makes you willing to make the switch.

Resources

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