Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services (2nd Edition)
| Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services > 14. Analyzing and Reducing Costs > Design, Piloting, and Deployment Costs |
Design, Piloting, and Deployment Costs
The first half of your directory's life cycle includes all the activity up to the point where you throw the switch and put your directory into production. The costs associated with this phase can be broken down into three major areas: design costs, piloting costs, and deployment costs. In this section we examine each of these areas, describe the specific types of costs, and offer some advice on reducing those costs. Design Costs
As discussedin Part II, "Designing Your Directory Service," the design phase of your directory's life cycle is when you make many important decisions concerning the scope and structure of your directory service. Costs associated with this phase primarily involve staff but include all of the following:
Reducing Design Costs
In general, you should be careful about cutting costs in the design phase of your directory's life cycle. Studies have repeatedlyshown that mistakes made during the early part of a project are significantly more expensive to correct than mistakes made later in the project. If in doubt, look for other expenses to reduce. You should be aware of the relative efficiency of attempting your directory design process solely using in-house expertise versus involving outside consultants. Evaluate the directory-specific knowledge of your staff who will design the directory. Are they familiar with directory technology, or will there be significant training costs incurred beforedesign can begin? If directory technology is not something your staff is familiar with, it may be better to bring in consultants who can help you with the design process. Piloting Costs
During the piloting phase of your directory's life cycle, you obtain invaluable information about your directory design. You learn whether your design assumptions are valid and, if they're not, you have the opportunity to revisit your design and make improvements. As in the design phase, reducing costs in the piloting phase is risky; if you don't obtain useful feedback, your design may not be optimal. When reducing costs in this phase, be sure that you do not compromise your ability to obtain and respond to feedback from your pilot users. The following are common costs associated with piloting:
Reducing Piloting Costs
The piloting phase of your directory life cycle is your opportunity to validate your directory design and anticipate potential problems before going into full production. Therefore, you should ensure that your pilot program gives you the information required for a successful deployment. If your pilot program doesn't give you this information, you need to either do another pilot or proceed without it. Neither outcome is desirable, of course. To reduce piloting costs, try to pick your pilot participants carefully , explain very clearly what you expect from them, and tell them how they will benefit from their participation. If you don't obtain useful feedback from your pilot users, your pilot will be much less effective than it could have been. On the other hand, if your pilot participants generate useful feedback that helps you validate your basic assumptions and improves the service before it goes into production, your piloting costs represent money well spent. Deployment Hardware Costs
During the deploymentphase of your directory service, you will purchase the equipment required to provide the full directory service you've been planning. Deployment hardware costs include everything in your infrastructure that is directly used to provide the directory service, including the following:
Reducing Deployment Hardware Costs
There are a number of ways to reduce the cost of hardware used to provide your directory service. First and foremost, deploy your directory service on reliable hardware that scales well. This means using server and network hardware that has sufficient capacity for present needs and that can be upgraded to handle additional capacity. When evaluating hardware vendors, consider the following questions:
Purchasing a server without sufficient scaling capacity means that you'll need to replace that hardware at some point in the future. This may be unavoidable considering how quicklyCPU speeds are improving and prices are dropping. Ideally, however, you should choose to replace hardware when newer , cheaper, and faster hardware is available and not because your current hardware is overburdened and cannot be upgraded. Another way to reduce hardware costs is to choose directory server software that runs on multiple hardware and operating system platforms. Choosing this type of software allows you the flexibility to choose the best hardware for the task instead of limiting you to a single hardware and OS platform. But keep in mind that a heterogeneous computing environment is more expensive to maintain than a homogeneous one. Being creative when negotiating pricing can also help you reduce hardware costs. This may involve purchasing hardware in larger quantities . This approach, of course, may be at odds with deploying your directory in a stepwise fashion, in which you might plan to add additional capacity only as the need arises. However, if you have some idea of how your directory needs will expand, you may be able to negotiate a better price from a vendor by committing to purchase the additional hardware over some period of time. If you can pool your purchases with other projects, you may be able to obtain even more favorable pricing. Finally, to reduce hardware purchase costs, choose directory server software that is efficient and scales well in terms of:
Ask the software vendor to suggest reasonable hardware configurations for the directory you plan to deploy. Be sure to provide information both on the number of entries you plan to store in your directory and the type of directory client load you plan to place on the directory. You may find that the minimum hardware requirements vary widely depending on the software vendor. Obviously, a directory that can be deployed efficiently on a single server is less expensive to deploy than a directory that requires data to be partitioned among many servers. Does the server software take advantage of multiple CPUs? Or can additional replicas be easily deployed to handle additional client load? The answers to all these questions will help you understand how hardware costs will be affected by your choice of directory server software. Deployment Software Costs
To deploy your directory service, you need several different types of software. You may also need to develop custom software for your directory service. Software costs might include the following:
Reducing Deployment Software Costs
As with hardware costs, software costs are often negotiable. Ask the vendor about various pricing options. Is the pricing per CPU? per server? per user? per entry? If multiple pricing options are available, one might be the best choice for your situation now, but another might benefit you down the road. Be sure to look at future growth when deciding on a pricing model. Better pricing can often be obtained by purchasing additional software from the vendor at the same time. Take the time to find out if your organization is in (or is planning) negotiations with the vendor over other software. A vendor will often provide more favorable pricing when multiple products are being purchased.
Apportioning Hardware and Software Costs When you consider the various hardware that comprises your directory service, some items are completely specific to the directory service itself whereas others are shared among all parts of your computing infrastructure. For example, if you have a dedicated machine that you run an LDAP server on, the CPU, memory, disks, monitor, and so on, are used solely to provide the directory service. On the other hand, the router that connects the machine room Ethernet to the rest of your network is shared among a number of services. Similarly, some software may be shared among multiple services. For example, you might have a site license that allows you to install operating system software on a number of systems throughout your organization. A portion of the site license cost should be attributed to the directory service. When analyzing costs, you might perform a simple calculation to apportion the costs of these shared resources among the various services. If you have a machine room that houses 50 server computers, and 5 of those servers are dedicated LDAP servers, you might allocate 10% (5 divided by 50) of the total machine room costs to the directory service. These costs cover networking (routers, hubs, cabling, monitoring software), power (AC power, uninterruptible power supplies), air conditioning, and staffing costs, if any. Of course, this calculation can get more complicated. For example, if the attachment of your directory servers requires an upgrade to the router hardware (to handle the additional load), it might be argued that the directory service should assume the entire cost of the upgrade. On the other hand, it's quite likelythat some other service will eventually be deployed or expanded, necessitating the upgrade. As with most types of budgeting, there are always opinions on both sides.
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Index terms contained in this sectionanalysis pilot staff costs applications costs development tools costs backups hardware costs software costs benefit costs reducing clients software costs configuring server software contractors reducing fees costs reducing deployment hardware 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th deployment software 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th design costs 2nd 3rd 4th piloting costs 2nd 3rd 4th 5th deployment pilot staff costs reducing costs hardware 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th software 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th design costs outside contractor fees reducing 2nd 3rd 4th reducing;salary and benefits research materials software training development applications costs directories costs reducing 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th 20th 21st 22nd 23rd 24th documentation costs piloting enhancements operating systems software costs equipment costs piloting feedback pilot staff costs fees outside contractors reducing hardware costs apportioning 2nd 3rd deployment reducing costs 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th network reducing costs prices negotiating incentives user pilot costs mass-storage devices reducing costs memory upgrades reducing costs metadirectory software costs monitoring hardware reducing costs negotiating hardware prices software costs networks hardware reducing costs NMS costs NMS (network management system) hardware reducing costs operating systems software costs enhancements outside contractors reducing fees performance monitoring reducing hardware costs physical space reducing hardware costs piloting costs documentation equipment reducing 2nd 3rd 4th 5th software staff 2nd training user incentives portability server software prices hardware negotiating publicity pilot staff costs RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) reducing costs reducing costs deployment hardware 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th deployment software 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th design costs 2nd 3rd 4th piloting costs 2nd 3rd 4th 5th research costs reducing salary costs reducing servers capacities capacities;server costs reducing software configuring costs portability software costs applications apportioning 2nd 3rd backup and restore software clients development tools metadirectories NMS operating systems piloting reducing server utility deployment reducing costs 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th server portability servers configuring staff costs pilot deployment pilot publicity, feedback and analysis storage mass-storage devices reducing costs training costs piloting reducing upgrades memory reducing users costs pilot incentives utility software costs
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