Replicator – Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of an online (Hosted / Cloud based) backup solution can often be advertised as one thing, and end up being another by hosted service providers. More often than not, this can be a simple miscommunication or misunderstanding about what client resources a backup solution can provide. By asking a few simple questions and confirming a few solution requirements, an astute IT Executive can avoid any unexpected costs.
Costs to be considered:
Installation Fees
- What is price of installation fees requested by your provider? What does it include?
- Shipping & Handling of any hardware?
- Hourly engineering/smart hands costs?
- Installation Troubleshooting?
Installation Labor
- How much time and effort will be required by you and/or your team to successfully install the solution?
- Will it take your staff away from their regular duties? For how long?
- Do you have the necessary in-house expertise, or will you have to pay a third party consultant?
Ongoing Costs
- Recurring fees from the service provider
- What is the monthly amount that will be invoiced? Are there annual increases?
- Is there any way your recurring costs can increase or change?
- Data limits
- Data transfer caps
- Support
- Is support included in your recurring costs?
- Is there a limit to how many hours of support you can use?
- Are there activities that may not be included in support? (Site visits, etc)
Testing – This is a Big one and is most often overlooked
- Does your service provider include any testing in your recurring costs?
- Do you want to test more than is specifically allowed for in your service contract?
- Is there a limit to the type of, timing of, or support provided during your testing operations?
Indirect costs (costs you don’t get an invoice for)
- Do you have enough bandwidth to support this backup operation? Is the solution using too much bandwidth affecting other aspects of your IT environment? Do you have to upgrade your bandwidth?
- Do you currently have the staff to support this backup operation? Will you have to hire/train new/existing employees to support it?
- Is there hardware that will increase costs associated with hosting in your datacenter?
- Cooling
- Power
- Space
As with any vendor, providing any service, performing complete due diligence before committing will avoid any surprises. It is most important to have a full understanding of what services you are being provided and exactly what they will cost. Any vendor that has an interest in working with you as a partner will be more than happy to answer all of your questions.
Replicator Cost – The Replicator costs are calculated on a combination of number of servers + data. In general the price ranges around $100-$200 per month per server with testing, recovery, implementation etc.