Exercise - Compare workload costs using the TCO calculator

Completed

In this exercise, you use the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator to compare the cost of running a sample workload in your datacenter versus on Azure.

Assume you're considering moving some of your on-premises workloads to the cloud. But first, you need to understand more about moving from a relatively fixed cost structure to an ongoing monthly cost structure.

You'll need to investigate whether there are any potential cost savings in moving your datacenter to the cloud over the next three years. You need to take into account all of the potentially hidden costs involved with operating on-premises and in the cloud.

Instead of manually collecting everything you think might be included, you use the TCO Calculator as a starting point. You adjust the provided cost assumptions to match your on-premises environment.

Note

Remember, you don't need an Azure subscription to work with the TCO Calculator.

Let's say that:

• You run two sets, or banks, of 50 virtual machines (VMs) in each bank.
• The first bank of VMs runs Windows Server under Hyper-V virtualization.
• The second bank of VMs runs Linux under VMware virtualization.
• There's also a storage area network (SAN) with 60 TB of disk storage.
• You consume an estimated 15 TB of outbound network bandwidth each month.
• There are also a number of databases involved, but for now, you'll omit those details.

Recall that the TCO Calculator involves three steps:

Define your workloads

Enter the specifications of your on-premises infrastructure into the TCO Calculator.

1. Go to the TCO Calculator.

2. Under Define your workloads, select Add server workload to create a row for your bank of Windows Server VMs.

3. Under Servers, set the value for each of these settings:

   Setting	Value
   Name	Servers: Windows VMs
   Workload	Windows/Linux Server
   Environment	Virtual Machines
   Operating system	Windows
   Operating System License	Datacenter
   VMs	50
   Virtualization	Hyper-V
   Core(s)	8
   RAM (GB)	16
   Optimize by	CPU
   Windows Server 2008/2008 R2	Off

4. Select Add server workload to create a second row for your bank of Linux VMs. Then specify these settings:

   Setting	Value
   Name	Servers: Linux VMs
   Workload	Windows/Linux Server
   Environment	Virtual Machines
   Operating system	Linux
   VMs	50
   Virtualization	VMware
   Core(s)	8
   RAM (GB)	16
   Optimize by	CPU

5. Under Storage, select Add storage. Then specify these settings:

   Setting	Value
   Name	Server Storage
   Storage type	Local Disk/SAN
   Disk type	HDD
   Capacity	60 TB
   Backup	120 TB
   Archive	0 TB

6. Under Networking, set Outbound bandwidth to 15 TB.

7. Select Next.

Adjust assumptions

Here, you specify your currency. For brevity, you leave the remaining fields at their default values.

In practice, you would adjust any cost assumptions and make any adjustments to match your current on-premises environment.

1. At the top of the page, select your currency. This example uses US Dollar ($).
2. Select Next.

View the report

Take a moment to review the generated report.

Remember, you've been tasked to investigate cost savings for your European datacenter over the next three years.

To make these adjustments:

1. Set Timeframe to 3 Years.
2. Set Region to North Europe.

Scroll to the summary at the bottom. You see a comparison of running your workloads in the datacenter versus on Azure.

Select Download to download or print a copy of the report in PDF format.

Great work. You now have the information that you can share with your Chief Financial Officer. If you need to make adjustments, you can revisit the TCO Calculator to generate a fresh report.