CHAPTER 4: RESULTS OF STUDY
4.5 Total Cost of Ownership Calculation of Thin-clients versus Fat-clients - Outsourced
4.5.5 The Cost Calculation Model
The choice of desktop allocated is based on the business profile of each user. The job- function and requirements of the user dictate whether users are power-users and require the additional functionality required by their desktop and deem them an allocation of a fat-client, whether laptop or PC. Based on consultation with the management of National Ship Chandlers the following minimum mandatory requirements were defined across the regional offices of National Ship Chandlers. Management and supervisors who require PCs or laptops are defined by the CEO. They are all defined by default as power-users or super-users. Table 4.18 defines the minimum desktop requirements landscape for National Ship Chandlers across the country.
Minimum Mandatories 0 f D es tOl! k All ocabon
Number of FC - Laptops Number of FC -PCs Total
Durban 4 5 9
Richards Bay 0 2 2
Port Elizabeth 0 2 2
Cape Town 0 5 5
Total Minimum Fat Client Requirements 18
Table 4.18: Mandatory Number of Fat-clients required at National Ship Chandlers - Source:
Interview with CID, 2006
Therefore the common denominator for an outsource costing for both fat and thin-clients will always be 18 fat-clients as per minimum requirements defined by the business. These 18 fat- clients will remain a constant irrespective of thin or fat-client desktop platform. Therefore the costing exercise below will draw a comparative analysis between the balances of desktop users, that is, 77 thin-clients versus 77 fat-clients. Table 4.19 provides a breakdown of this rationale.
Common Denominator for Fat Clients vs Thin Client TCO Analysis
Number of Thin Clients Number of Fat Clients Mandatory Fat Clients
18 18
Constant
Outsource Comparison
77 77
Analysis
Total Desktops 95 95
Table 4.19: Common Denommator Constant for Fat-clients - Source: Interview with CID,2006
Table 4.20 is a detailed comparative analysis of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of thin- clients versus fat-clients in an outsourced desktop envirorunent. All detail calculations are attached as Appendix 6.
The costs derived are confined to the following limitations:
• Management defined the number of super-users for each region that will be allocated fat-client devices, that is, 18 in total.
• File servers are priced for each of the environments because they have a direct impact on the TCO calculation.
• WAN link tariffs are also priced as a result of the different bandwidth requirements by thin-clients versus fat-clients, and directly impacts the TCO calculation.
• Fifteen percent margin is applied to cost prices obtained from distributors on hardware and software
• Pricing calculated at 18% interest rate including bank charges.
• All prices are South African Rand value, calculated: August 2006 - November 2006 and exclude Value Added Tax
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AT).• The service provider that will be servicing National Ship Chandlers has serVlce centres at each of the regional sites.
• Any dollar prices are calculated at fixed exchange rate of $1. 00 = R 7.00
• Monitors are a constant cost factor and therefore NOT factored. This includes end- user licenses for Microsoft Exchange® and Active Directory® access.
• The outsourced costing is based on IBM's Desktop Management Service (DMS) offering as defined in Section 4.4.
Mean-Time-To-Failure (MTTF) for both fat-client and thin-client environments are calculated on actual values obtained from National Ship Chandler's IT Manager on current fat-client and thin-client quantities. Based on 77 fat-clients and 77 thin-clients, the MTTF values were then proportioned accordingly to yield a projected MTTF for each environment.
Microsoft Exchange Servers were also priced into TCO calculations for both environments due to impact of number of Exchange Servers required and therefore further software licensing cost implications.
Total Cost Of Ownership(TCO) Analysis for National Ship Chandlers of Thin Clients vs Fat Clients
'" This analysis endeavours to assist in making a business decision on technologies of choice
'" This analysis does not constitute a fixed methodology to the Tea calculation for generic environments
R 28'1.31 7
R 42,345.60 R 62,770.00
R 20,424.39
This analysis is confined to:
MBA Dissertation Research 2006
...
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per user per month for licenses and R3cS.53 per user for 2 year maintenance for on yield 3 year software maintenance. For Fat Clients cost of OS is included in hardware
Citrix Servers. Storage for Thin Clients on File Server located at HQ. For Fe
IEnvironment: 1 X File Server for Head Office (CongeUa) -Same conflg as file server with single
vitl, 3 X 73GB HOD, 40/80GB OL T Tape Backup Drive & 1 X Exchange Server, 1 X with Exchange Server installed for each site i.e. Port Elizabeth, Richards Bay & Cape
Cibix Support per month versus; FCs : 80 hours for 1 additional file server at HQ, Exchange and file servers at remote sites + Administration of SMS Services
... The dynamics of the National Ship Chandlers environment as at August 2006 ... Calculated with finance over 36 months explicitly
... Exclusively hardware calls made to helpdesk relating to Thin Clients
... For 95 desktop user environment with 18 fat client users as a constant . ... WAN costing as supplied by Telkom Telematic Tariffs Software
... Call rates do NOT reflect those that maybe experienced in an outsourced environment '"' Does NOT include costs associated with the SAN in either Thin Client or Fat Client scenarios
". Does NOT include application level calls and support
... New Hardware Infrastructure to be Costed for both Environments
Table 4.20: Total Cost Ownership Analysis of Thin-clients versus Fat-clients in Outsourced Desktop Environment
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