Why is TCO so important?

High-Performance Computing for many years has always operated in the same manner, on-premise.  HPC was a service where you bought hardware, stored that hardware on-site, and managed the service on your premises.  People often think when looking at the cost of HPC it is only down to the cost of the machine, the “tin”.  That all important capital expenditure is what people focus on.

However, with the progression of Cloud in the world of HPC, that all important debate of CAPEX vs OPEX remains a constant.  Different people will have different views but what it does highlight is the need to understand your HPC solution in its entirety.  What does entirety mean? Well you cannot just look at  the expense of the tin and metal, the machine.  There are significant overheads and additional costs which are paid for by your business to operate an on-premise machine.  Whilst you may not see these costs in your PnL, they are very much there and need to be accountable.

Expenses such as: Electricity, Water Cooling, Maintenance, Facility Costs, Data Centre Costs, Insurance and Maintenance.  These all need to be taken into account and included when looking at the Total Cost of Ownership of your on-premise HPC.  What is also often left out when reviewing HPC is the commitment over time a solution could cost your business, such as:

The investments which may need to be made when looking at data centres or a data centre refresh.
The years of costs which you could be committed too.

Recognising the need for an all-encompassing, accurate review when looking at the cost of a HPC service, Red Oak Consulting embarked on creating our very own, TCO Modelling tool.  Designed by our experts we set out to create a tool that could record and calculate the actual cost of HPC whether you are looking at an On-premise solution or running HPC in the Cloud.  The need to fully understand set-up, utilisation and the long-term outlook in the provision of a HPC service has never been more critical.

At Red Oak Consulting we continue to work with many customers getting them to a place of confidence when understanding their HPC solution.  Our team of experts can deep dive into an organisation, analyse existing workflows, gain an understanding of cost structures, and feed all this specific information into a TCO model.  All this work formulates into a report which you can use within your business to assist you in making that informed decision about what to do next in terms of HPC.

Whether you are wanting to compare On-Premise to Cloud or get a estimated cost of your current HPC service a TCO model is the most accurate and comprehensive method in which to get your answers.

To get a taster of what a TCO model can show you and what information is absorbed into the model take a look at the generic modelling tool below.  Here, you can insert numbers, costs and utilisation to see the results!

For a more detailed analysis on your business please get in touch.