The topic of cost (or anything related to cost) is not a popular one when it comes to IT management. With labor costs first, the total IT costs are typically the next major group of business costs. Everyone knows this and generally no one acknowledges it. It is just something that has been traditionally ignored by IT -- a business "fact of life". The reality is that for Business Management to truly understand the value of IT, they must first understand the cost of IT.
In the past, there have been attempts to understand IT in a meaningful business manner (i.e. costs). Until now, no product has integrated the business costs with IT performance information to provide costing metrics that are meaningful. Using Total Cost of Ownership and Software Oriented Architecture (SOA) models, RG Solutions® provides cost information that not only gives insight into cost origins, but allows for the evaluation of those costs - in a business manner.
Key Business Values
- Assists in the alignment of IT with the business by providing business insight into the IT processing.
- Integrates business costs with Capacity Management for a low-cost and effective solution that measures the value of IT.
- Provides cost and technical breakdowns for service delivery points within an SOA environment.
- Provides cost information that can be used in a Chargeback / Showback system, product pricing model, or other cost related business processes.
Costing Maturity Model
All RG Solutions® processing is based on a Resource Catalog. This catalog is used to define assets, the costs associated with the assets, the processing constraints for some of the assets, and the relationship of some assets to other assets. A Resource can be a Capital Asset, a group of expenditures, a single system, a group of systems, a Virtual System, or any combination thereof. In addition, Resources can be shared with other Resources to form a hybrid structure. (For example, a Networked Storage solution would not be an independent processing environment, but rather one that is shared by one or more systems).
File Servers: Since all system processing in the Costing Model is done on computer systems, RG Solutions® provides a Repository for each system identified in the Resource Catalog. The Repository contains all information that is related to the underlying system processing. This can be native performance information, companion data, or other data provided for measuring the Resource. Along with the native performance information, the processing will also provide information that is “platform neutral”. That is to say, the information is the same for any system architecture and will contain transparent cost information. The Repository information forms the basis of the Level 1 information for the Costing Model.
Web Services: Level 2 of the Costing Model is concerned with the delivery of Web Services for the business. For this level, RG Solutions® provides a Service Catalog that contains information about the provided IT business services. The Service Catalog is hierarchal in nature and contains Service Directory information for the services provided by the underlying Application Server. All information in the Service Catalog is cost and technically based and reflects the processing as it pertains to the services – even if the service involved multiple systems (Resources).
Business Processes: While the measurement requirements for Level 1 and Level 2 of the Costing Model have been around for a long time, the Level 3 requirements were introduced with the SOA model. Like the Level 2 processing, RG Solutions® provides an Activity Catalog that provides similar information. This catalog contains information for each of the underlying systems. The activity information not only includes cost information, but also information regarding services (Business Objects) within the Business Processes. Companion data can be provided to the Level 3 processing that allows for the inclusion of human costs for Business Process calculations.
Green Computing: One of the major issues facing IT today is how to deal with the green costs (mainly electrical power) associated with the system processing. It has been long known that power costs can be substantial, and in recent years has fueled the migration to Virtual Appliances. The “low hanging fruit” has now been picked from the Green Computing tree and it will be more difficult to realize gains in this area. RG Solutions® automatically calculates and includes the power costs associated with the system processing, and provides an understanding of those costs in relation to the system processing. This allows for more informed decisions related to green power costs.
RG Solutions® has a long history in Capacity Management and its evolution has bridged the gap between business management and truly understanding IT. Current frameworks form a solid foundation for decisions pertaining to new applications or systems, but they lack measurement and cost related processes for most of the Costing Model. The reason for this shortcoming is quite simple; the frameworks are based on “best practices” and quite frankly there has been little attention paid to these critical areas.
Benefits
RG Solutions® provides the opportunity for business management to have a more active role in IT decisions. Post implementation decisions are usually highly technical, and in the past these decisions were made by individuals who did not communicate well with business management. It was a highly complex process and the results were not structured for a business management mindset. RG Solutions® reduces the technical complexity and injects cost information for more business relevance. The following are just some of the benefits that can be realized using RG Solutions®:
- Aligns IT with Business Management through effective cost, usage, and life cycle metrics.
- Not only reports IT costs, but presents IT costs in a business oriented manner.
- Cost information can be used for a Chargeback / Showback system, pricing models, cost based decision making, or any other cost based business requirement.
- An integrated solution for measuring all asset conservancy activities in both technical and business terms.
- Formation of business cases based on actual cost data.
- Native performance information for all levels of the Costing Model.
- Hybrid information that is platform neutral. Allows for cross platform analysis, benchmarking, and evaluation.
- Technical reporting and evaluation of system, Web Services, and Business Processes. Provides Usage and Demand Metrics for long term analysis and future estimates.
