Far too often when businesses budget for technology they forget the not so obvious, but critical pieces of the infrastructure. The obvious pieces like hardware, software, and maybe even some install services are put right into the budget. However maintenance, support, backup, and disaster recovery seem to be an afterthought. I have also seen many times where they did not even plan for power and cooling. Nothing like getting everything in, hooked up, and oops the power just overloaded.

When planning for new systems being brought into your business, you have to look beyond the hardware and software portion. You have to look beyond the initial cost and implementation. Most likely the system is going to be around for a while.

Supporting services like support contracts, backup and recovery, etc. can cost up to three times the initial estimate for the hardware and software.

Now not every system needs the same level of support or backup and recovery. You have to take in to account how critical the system is your business. Figure out what it will cost you in business for a particular system is down for X amount of time.

Few things to look at when budgeting for a new system or IT infrastructure…

• Is this critical to my business?
• How much will it cost my business per hour of downtime?
• Will this be hosted local or remotely?
• Do I have the power and cooling required?
• Do I have the network in place?
• Do I need offsite backup?
• Who will provide maintenance, on staff or third party?

There are many more areas that we could dig into. However I find these critical in answering the bottom line of the budgetary requirements. Let’s dig into each area a little more.

Business Critical?

This should be the first question for anyone. Everything else is largely based on answering this simple question. More over the same system for different businesses may or may not be critical.

For example email may be extremely critical to a business that deals heavily in sales and marketing functions. However email for a restaurant may be minimal impact.

The question to ask is, “is there a major impact to business if this system goes down?”

How much will it cost my business per hour of downtime?

This cannot always be answered right off, especially for a new application. However you need to put money into the equation. That will help you decide on support contracts with the vendors for hardware and software.

This is an area that many businesses overlook. Most products you buy will come with a basic level of support. You really need to understand how long it could take to get an issue resolved?

Is your business ok with 24-48 hours of downtime?

Do you require 4 hour or less response?

Many businesses are scared off by the support costs and often you can spend as much or more on the support and service as you do the hardware and software. However you need to understand the cost of downtime for your system for your business. If it is critical to your business the enhanced levels of support should be a no-brainer.

The great thing is with most vendors you can have your support based on certain systems. This means those systems that are not critical can be left at a lower level of support while the critical systems have the higher level.

Hosted local or remote?

Many times when businesses have their own IT staff and data center they tend to overlook the requirements needed to support the infrastructure. Some smaller businesses do not have much more than an extra room or closet to store their servers and network switches. More and more you are seeing businesses of all sizes move their infrastructure to either be hosted at a co-location site (shared data center) or into the cloud.

When you are looking at your application you may want to consider the possibility of remotely hosted or cloud as they generally offer many of the other areas of concern.

No matter the hosting method you choose you need to understand the inherent cost of either path. Hosting it local may require you to add more power, battery backup, cooling, network, etc.

Do I have the power and cooling require?

This comes more into play if you are hosting it locally. However if you are remotely hosting the systems, not via cloud, you may incur more cost as many providers charge for power usage.

Cooling is often overlooked and really should not be. Nothing kills hardware like heat and it does not take as much as you think. Large data centers are generally kept in the 60-75 degree range with a certain humidity level. Anytime you add systems to the data center it requires more cooling to keep those same levels, thus more power.

Network?

I cannot tell you how many times I have seen a project where they planned the servers, software, power, and everything else. Then when they got everything in and start setting up realize they do not have any network ports available!!

Backups and Recovery?

Many companies tend to forget this dirty little requirement. Backup and more importantly recovery are something you never want to forget. Nothing like having a system with business data crash and lose all of your data or an employee accidentally over writes an important document. Many times even a system that was not designated critical will end up having data that people cannot live without.

Should it be offsite?

It is always a good idea to have a backup of your data local and offsite. With the growth of online backup services this does not have to cost a ton of money. However if you have more sensitive data and or have concerns with the online services, you may look at offsite backup services like Iron Mountain. You will have a much higher cost, but maybe a better piece of mind?

At the very least you should have a method onsite to back up the data from your systems. Data storage is cheap and can also fail, so buy more of it and backup your data!!

Who will provide maintenance?

Will you have onsite personnel maintain the systems?

Do they have the skillset or will they need training?

Do they have the capacity to add more systems and still maintain everything?

Will you hire a third party service company to provide maintenance and service? What will be the added cost of bringing in additional systems?

As you add more systems to your infrastructure the more work is required to keep everything up and going. You need to make sure that you have the resources either onsite or third party, to support the infrastructure and in a timely manner.

Budgeting is much more than clicking “add to cart”

It has become so easy to order servers and software that it is not much different than going to Amazon.com and ordering a book. However it also makes it easy to overlook the supporting requirements needed to make a project successful.

I recommend that when planning projects like this that you talk to a technology consultant. Having an external resource to look over your plans and provide another set of eyes can say you a lot of trouble and money.

Nothing like getting everything in, exhausting your budget, and then realizing you need much more to make it work.

Have fun telling your boss you need more money!

Originally posted in the vAusTek Blog.