Did you know that figure has multiplied several times over?

Timo Lindström, CEO, DB Pro Oy & DB Pro Services Oy.

At DB Pro Services Oy, we are constantly carrying out various database migration projects for our clients. The hottest topic this year has clearly been price increases for hardware. Our clients have reported price increases of up to six times this year.

I’ve put together a calculation that every IT and finance director should review for their own organization. It covers a typical two-processor Microsoft SQL Server database server running on VMware virtualization, including hardware depreciation, licenses, electricity, data center space, other data center costs, and maintenance.

  • MS SQL Server Enterprise server, 2-socket, 32 cores, 5-year TCO: €634,000.
  • Database licenses account for about half of this amount. 10 servers like this, or a couple of high-performance database servers, and the five-year total TCO is six million euros.

Price increases of 100% are the new normal. If server hardware has accounted for around 10% of TCO, that figure is now nearly 20% with prices doubling. Capacity optimization has been a significant factor in saving on licensing costs, but its importance in reducing hardware costs is rapidly increasing.

  • 50% – The share of SQL Server licenses in TCO
  • 20% – The share of hardware in TCO

There are excellent tools available that provide real-time insights into your database’s performance. CPU utilization, IOPS, memory usage, and query response time. These metrics answer the question: Is your environment running smoothly right now?

They don’t answer a different question: How much does your environment cost, and is it appropriately sized in relation to your actual needs?

SQL Server Enterprise licenses are sold per core. Every unnecessary core is pure money down the drain, year after year. Experience from hundreds of customer projects shows: most environments have 25–50% overcapacity. Not because IT doesn’t know what it’s doing, but because there hasn’t been a tool to calculate it.

“CPU 30% — everything’s fine.” It isn’t. That means you’re paying more than half of your entire environment’s costs for licenses and hardware, the sizing of which is based on guesswork.

Customer Case: Tampa General Hospital: 40% savings — zero downtime

Tampa General Hospital (https://www.tgh.org/) is one of the leading hospitals in the United States. The plan was to migrate to Azure, but the performance did not match that of the previous environment.

Once a thorough capacity and cost analysis was conducted, performance bottlenecks and downtime were eliminated, and performance was improved.

The result: ~40% savings in total cost of ownership (TCO). Zero downtime. Zero crisis meetings.

One question you should know the answer to today: “How much will your database environment cost in five years—all costs included?”

Not just a license bill. Not just server costs. All licenses, SA, OS, virtualization, electricity, data center space, personnel, and maintenance.

If you don’t know the answer, you can’t make an informed decision. You don’t know if the current infrastructure is appropriately sized. You don’t know if 4-socket or 8-socket servers are justified or excessive.

98% of our optimization projects—out of more than 200—have yielded significant savings—typically 25–50% of TCO.

 

Sincerely, Timo Lindström
CEO, DB Pro Oy & DB Pro Services Oy

Are you interested? I’d be happy to discuss this with you.