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Slide 1: 2009 Applicable Limited Mark Dixon Business and Technology Consultant THE COST OF AVAILABILITY This document explores the relative costs of extending an existing messaging environment to enhanced availability and recoverability using both IBM and Microsoft platforms.
Slide 2: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Why should I read this document? Managers are facing increased demands from their users and businesses to enhance the availability and reliability of their existing messaging infrastructure while also being asked to build business cases that show best value and an early return on investment. The need to deploy clustering and disaster recovery solutions is demonstrated by the need for organisations to: • Increase Service Availability beyond 99.5% which is typically what can be expected from a single server. Provide longer business day support in geographically dispersed scenarios. Support the business in the event of a disaster • • Applicable has a long history helping customers implement and supporting advanced collaboration solutions using both IBM and Microsoft technologies. During this time we have built a good understanding of the costs involved deploying these technologies, as well as day-to-day support for them from a service desk. Using our experience and knowledge we have built financial model that reflect some common scenarios for extending an existing messaging platform for companies that have either Microsoft Exchange or IBM Lotus Domino installed. 1. The first scenario is that of a singleton mail server. 2. The second scenario builds on this buy including the costs for a second clustered server that provides a hot failover service. 3. The final scenario builds further to add an a third cluster member located in a remote data centre that provides a hot failover in the event of a data centre outage. We then analysed these models over estates of varying sizes from 500 users up to 4000 users. What conclusions did we reach? During our research we identified two key findings. 1. IBM Solutions are up to 52% cheaper based on Infrastructure costs and subsequent user support costs. 2. When licensing costs are introduced, particularly those of Microsoft Office – this saving is more pronounced.
Slide 3: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION INTRODUCTION Availability and disaster recovery are not only designed to cover extraordinary outages – like the oft quoted example of a plane landing on your data centre. They also cover the mundane problems that occur more frequently, such as power failure, localised floods, human error or fire. Availability and recoverability are issues for organisations of all sizes and types. There are few organisations today that can survive without email and our customer’s often ask us to provide solutions for business risks introduced by poor availability or recoverability. With this report, Applicable sets out to investigate the total cost of ownership for two advanced collaboration service providers (IBM and Microsoft). This is to help the reader to make a comparison between the two vendors based on cost for similar functionality and scale. The scenarios chosen were designed to aid this comparison by ensuring that similar function points and user estate types were delivered by the platform designs. The chart above demonstrates the cost leadership offered by IBM Lotus based solutions for all estate sizes and types – particularly smaller estates. This chart excludes the cost of Microsoft Office 2007 which is required to get the full functionality from the Microsoft Exchange 2007 server. Key Points The models and analysis in this study allow the following conclusions to be drawn: Many organisations are considering how to enhance their Microsoft Exchange 2003 or IBM Lotus Domino 7 environment by looking to the next release from either manufacturer, often to gain access to new functionality. IBM Lotus solutions offer a more cost effective service for those customers that value availability, recoverability and cost containment for their technology goals. Email services for organisations of 500-4000 user sizes are not evenly matched if your look at their respective costs. Excluding Microsoft Office 2007 licence costs the IBM solution is up to 26% cheaper at the 500 user level and 12% cheaper at the 4000 user level (measured in per user per month costs). When you include Microsoft Office 2007 (which provides the client functionality for Microsoft Exchange Server) – IBM Lotus Domino and Lotus Notes/Symphony are significantly cheaper – yet provide similar functionality for the majority of users. Clustering or introducing enhanced recover time or recovery point objectives of an organisation causes Microsoft solutions to become significantly more expensive, prohibitively so in the case of smaller estates . IBM Lotus Domino environments for all clustering scenarios scale in a more cost effective way – reflecting the consolidated nature of its architecture. IBM is up to 54% cheaper for customers of 500 users who want to cluster. These potential savings hold true for larger organisations – 2000 user estates can achieve savings of 29%.
Slide 4: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION TCO ANALYSIS METHODOLOGY Definition of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Total Cost of Ownership is a financial modelling approach that allows enterprise IT executives to assess the direct and indirect costs related to an IT system or service. The analysis of two competing technology vendors on the basis of cost is fraught with problems. Products do not map directly on to each other. Commercial licensing models do not necessarily lend themselves to direct comparison. Software bundling can lead to significant distortions in the models and comparisons. This is where a total cost of ownership analysis can help. Understanding the costs relating to an information technology system is a complex undertaking. Deciding on the content, approach and assumptions for a TCO model can be daunting at first. Applicable provides managed services to our customers using both IBM and Microsoft technologies for Unified Collaboration. Over the years we have developed experience and knowledge in the application lifecycles for most Unified Collaboration technologies, the related costs and how to manage them effectively. We have identified the following key attributes to a study of this kind: Size – the size of the user estate (or servers) to be supported – this can have a significant impact on the costs associated with each user – smaller estates are more expensive on a per-user basis. Term – how long the service will be in operation – can also have an impact on overall costs – the longer the term – the more return is achieved on capital expenditure – the lower the per user costs. Cost Categories – how to break down the costs - we have found three provide the most insight: 1. Platform or physical costs for the platform 2. Licensing or software costs 3. Support – or how much it costs to man the help desk and run the service Functionality of the service – or what is required by the user estate – the more complex the service and the more features supported – the more expensive it is on a per user basis. We have also identified the easiest way to compare systems is to look at these attributes in terms of a “per user per month” (PUPM) cost. This articulates the cost for each user on the platform – and allows (within the limits of the model) IT executives to compare costs over differing terms and for different functionality and user estates. What’s included For the purposes of this exercise, it is important to structure the costs in such a way that it is possible to support future comparison. It is also important to compare the costs of the service over a common period of time (or term). Sizing Information We are interested in how costs compare for a range of organisation sizes from 500 users to 4000 users. We have identified the following user count break points to allow for an appropriate level of modelling: • • • • 500 Users 1000 Users 2000 Users 4000 Users To reduce the complexity of the model, all users are assumed to be information providers (needing a rich client experience) and average load users. Average load is a term used in the system capacity planning tools within each vendor’s website. Scenarios of Service The following scenarios have been identified. • • Email – the delivery of an email service to the user estate with 500MB Quotas Highly Available Email (clustered in a single Data Centre)
Slide 5: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION • Highly Available Email (clustered in a Single Data Centre and replicated to a Disaster Recover Site) The combination of the user estate sizes and scenarios above will result in nine models for each product to compare how they scale. Period of Comparison For this comparison, one term of three years has been used – this being the most common investment cycle for technologies within this sector. It also coincides with most hardware refresh cycles and the associated service offerings from hardware vendors. Categories of Cost Applicable has found it useful in the past to use three categories of costs to group more detailed direct and indirect costs under. These are: - Licence Costs Licence costs are the costs required to use the software (or other services) needed to deliver the service for the agreed term. This includes the applications themselves as well as the operating systems they reside on. It also includes any support tools and applications required to support the service in life - antivirus agents for example. Also included in licence costs are any applications required to access the service, client software for example. For this exercise, the following should be noted: • Applicable typically includes all licence costs over the period of the service offering – so it is important to include any software maintenance (or assurance). • Applicable has reviewed the impact of client software in terms of Microsoft Office 2007 (which provides Microsoft Outlook 2007). This software also provides many other office productivity tools and client software for much of the office enterprise suite. However, the equivalent IBM offering (Lotus Symphony) has been bundled with IBM’s UC clients offering as well. The impact has been assessed both with Microsoft Office 2007 and with the alternative of using an older or alternate version. • Client operating system licences costs have been excluded from both services. However, for the purposes of arriving at a price from Microsoft’s pricing systems, they have been included as these drive the operating system pool points. This in turn will drive the eventual Expected Retail Price (ERP) arrived at for other products. The basis of this service is Microsoft Windows Vista Business edition on the client, and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Standard edition on the server. • Microsoft offer both Subscription and Perpetual licensing models. Perpetual Licensing has been used for both IBM Lotus and Microsoft products throughout this report. For both vendors, software costs include appropriate maintenance (or assurance) for a three year term. Platform Costs Platform costs are those costs required to support the service. This includes servers, storage and backup solutions. For this exercise, the following should be noted: • Applicable manages service delivery in both hosted and on-premise configurations. It is relatively easy to arrive at a cost for a hosted environment for hosting costs – but on-premises data centres or server farms vary greatly. For this exercise these costs have been excluded. This will not affect the comparison as they are common to both platforms. Applicable operates these services offered to our customers using commodity hardware and software. As • noted above – all operating systems are supplied by Microsoft. We also use Intel based server technology to run the service. Hardware is a commodity these days, so we have created some standard server profiles, with estimates of costs to provide them. These have been used in both models to allow for fair comparison. • Applicable supports customers of all sizes and geographic profiles, and these factors have a significant impact on cost. For the purposes of this exercise a simple single data centre (or dual in the case of the disaster recovery scenario), and a single user site has been selected to provide a fair reflection of the costs attributable to vendors.
Slide 6: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION Support Costs Support costs are the costs required to support the users and the platform. Applicable has many years experience when it comes to providing a managed service to our customers that includes a helpdesk and support offering. These have been distilled down into a model based on user estate size, and technology complexity – we call it the “Rate Card”. For the purposes of this exercise, we have used this pricing method to arrive at our view of what the estate would cost to support from our perspective. This covers user administration and support. In addition to this we typically attach a charge for the management of each server. This covers server administration activities such as patching, monitoring, backing up and restoring data as well as security. This is common for IBM and IBM Lotus technologies. Another way to look at this problem could look at how many administrators and support staff it would take to support the number of users, and (allowing for holidays/sickness/shift patterns) work out the costs directly. Because we administer and support many customers, we can make savings for scale. Our assumption for this is that both technology stacks take equal amounts of effort to support (the user administration and support costs are usually the largest element of this anyway) and the more users you have on an estate, the greater the operational efficiencies. What’s excluded A model is only useful if it is economic to produce – therefore all models will exclude some elements. In this case – the exclusions are summarised below: • Network costs and remote access costs have not been included – the assumptions above about single site access with all users located on a single campus mean that network costs will not skew the results in any particular direction. • Applicable often uses virtualisation to reduce costs and improve operational efficiencies when delivering services and both technology platforms can make use of this new environmental architecture. However, the sizing tools used to arrive at a vendor supported design do not include directly, models for virtualisation. Applicable has used discrete servers to service the platform. • Client Workstations – we have excluded the physical workstation and operating system from the cost model. This is a common requirement to both technology environments. For a formal TCO workshop we would normally include this – as client age, type can have an impact on support costs. We have included where appropriate the client software required to access the service. This has particular relevance for Microsoft, which bundles this cost in the costs for Microsoft Office 2007. • Implementation, deployment and migration are often significant costs. These are highly dependent on existing infrastructures and business needs however – and it is very hard to generalise these types of costs so these have been excluded. Sources of Design Information A model is only as good as the sources of information it uses. As a design principle for this study, we have started with manufacturing information for each product. IBM and Microsoft use similar approaches to providing best practice guidelines for platform design and configuration for sizing information. Using these tools proved to be the most transparent means to arrive at equivalent platforms. The tools used were: Microsoft’s Systems Centre Capacity Planner Microsoft System Centre Capacity Planner 2007 is a pre-deployment capacity planning and post-deployment change analysis solution for Microsoft server products, including Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft System Centre Operations Manager 2007. i
Slide 7: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Planning Tool The Planning Tool for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 is a Windows Presentation Foundation standalone client application. The Planning Tool Wizard asks interview questions about features that the system administrator is interested in enabling in the Enterprise, as well as information about the Enterprise. The planning tool uses the information gathered from the administrator to dynamically draw a recommended topology for every site that the administrator identifies. Additionally, the planning tool calculates the types and amounts of hardware needed across the entire enterprise, as well as for each site. The planning tool also provides links to documentation of the specific planning and deployment tasks that the administrator will need in order to deploy the topology. TechNet Microsoft publishes many types of information about the planning and deployment of Exchange platforms within iii the TechNet portal. This portal acts as a repository of best practice and covers most scenarios. IBM Systems Workload Estimator The IBM Systems Workload Estimator is a web-based sizing tool for IBM Power Systems, System i, System p, and System x. You can use this tool to size a new system, to size an upgrade to an existing system, or to size a consolidation of several systems. The Workload Estimator (WLE) allows measurement input to best reflect your current workload and provides a variety of built-in workloads to reflect your emerging application requirements. Virtualization can be used to yield a more robust solution. The Workload Estimator will provide current and growth recommendations for processor, memory, and disk that satisfy the overall client performance requirements. IBM Redbooks IBM has a lot of architectural and deployment information in the deployment guides for Domino. This can help to size and design a server to support a specific environment. The best source for this information is the relevant v Redbook . iv ii Sources of Pricing Information As a principle for the preparation for this model, we have chosen to use published list prices. These are usually discounted during the sales cycle so actual costs to customers can vary greatly. Pricing strategy varies between Microsoft and IBM. This is summarised below: IBM Pricing IBM Pricing is based on a client access license and (in some cases) a server based license. These include the following attributes of relevance to the functionality required. There are three primary ways to acquire licenses of software in the Lotus Notes and Domino family: Client and Server licensing Acquire a client license for each user, plus server licenses determined by the total processor value units associated with your server machine(s). Various options are available for both client and server, depending on the degree of function you need (messaging only or messaging plus collaborative applications). Per user licensing Pay a per user charge based on your total number of users. This option is available through a portfolio of packaged offerings-some designed for small and midsize businesses, and others designed for large enterprises. With these offerings, you are entitled to deploy as many Lotus Domino servers of a particular type as you want, and each user is entitled to use any one of a variety of specified client types. Or, leverage extensive IBM vi
Slide 8: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION expertise in messaging and collaboration with a hosted environment that helps provide predicable costs and assistance with security, availability, and compliance requirements. Processor value unit licensing (applications only, no messaging) Acquire server licenses determined by the total processor value units associated with your server machine(s). Client access licenses are not required for application access by Web browser access, inside or outside your company. Two offerings are licensed in this fashion-one designed for small and midsize businesses, and one designed for larger enterprises. IBM Lotus Notes for Messaging is a IBM Lotus Notes license option with capability limited to messaging, calendar and scheduling, personal information management (local address book and personal journal), blogging, discussion databases and reference databases. Degree of function available to the user is controlled by the administrator through a parameter in the IBM Lotus Domino directory. A license for IBM Lotus Notes 6.5.1 software or higher includes limited use entitlement to instant messaging and presence awareness. IBM Lotus Notes for Collaboration software is integrated, full-function collaboration client for access to the full range of IBM Lotus Domino messaging and collaboration function, including team rooms and the capability to use IBM Lotus Domino applications. These applications may be developed in house using IBM Lotus Domino Designer software or acquired from an Independent Software Vendor. This license also includes limited use entitlement to instant messaging and presence awareness. IBM Lotus Domino Messaging Server combines full support for the latest Internet mail standards with Lotus Domino's industry-leading messaging, calendar and scheduling, discussion database and reference database capabilities - all in one manageable and reliable package. Lotus Domino Messaging Server also includes support for Lotus Domino partitioning (running more than one instance of Lotus Domino on the same machine using one copy of the Lotus Domino code). IBM Lotus Domino Enterprise Server provides all the functions of the IBM Lotus Domino Messaging Server, plus support for custom intranet and Internet applications. The applications may be developed in house using IBM Lotus Domino Designer or acquired from an Independent Software Vendor. Lotus Domino Enterprise Server includes support for Lotus Domino clustering, which allows data to be replicated in real time across a cluster of servers. This capability lets you balance server loads and take advantage of automatic failover when a server is unavailable. IBM Lotus Quickr (current version is 8.1) is licensed as a standard user value license or server Extranet PVU license. It also comes in standard or entry flavours - entry being for personal use only whilst standard is the license that covers the functionality in scenario three. IBM Lotus Quickr Authorized User License + SW Subscription & Support 12 Months is the most appropriate for scenario three. The IBM Lotus CEO Community Collaboration bundle incorporates full team collaboration, real time communications and social networking solution in one licence bundle. It combines collaborative capabilities and benefits of IBM Lotus Connections, IBM Lotus Sametime and IBM Lotus Quickr. Part of the IBM Lotus Complete Enterprise Option (CEO) bundle set, the IBM Lotus CEO Community Collaboration bundle provides optimized pricing for customers interested in making an enterprise-wide commitment. As with any IBM Lotus CEO bundle, the first purchase must be for the entire enterprise and any additional follow on sales have minimums of 100 users. The IBM Lotus CEO Community Collaboration bundle is also appropriate for smaller organizations with minimum purchase quantities of just 100 users (still requires entire enterprise for initial purchase). The prices used in the model are shown below: - IBM Products IBM LOTUS QUICKR AUTHORIZED USER LICENSE + SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT 12MONTHS Cost £47.94
Slide 9: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION IBM LOTUS QUICKR AUTHORIZED USER ANNUAL SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT RENEWAL IBM LOTUS SAMETIME STANDARD AUTHORIZED USER LICENSE + SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT 12 MONTHS IBM LOTUS SAMETIME STANDARD AUTHORIZED USER ANNUAL SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT RENEWAL 12 MONTHS IBM LOTUS SAMETIME ADVANCED AUTHORIZED USER LICENSE + SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT 12 MONTHS £9.59 £45.66 £9.13 £65.22 IBM LOTUS SAMETIME ADVANCED AUTHORIZED USER SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT RENEWAL IBM LOTUS DOMINO MESSAGING SERVER PROCESSOR VALUE UNIT (PVU) LICENSE + SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT 12 MONTHS IBM LOTUS DOMINO MESSAGING SERVER PROCESSOR VALUE UNIT (PVU) ANNUAL SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT RENEWAL IBM LOTUS NOTES WITH MESSAGING AUTHORIZED USER LICENSE + SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT 12 MONTHS IBM LOTUS NOTES WITH MESSAGING AUTHORIZED USER ANNUAL SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT RENEWAL IBM LOTUS NOTES WITH COLLABORATION AUTHORIZED USER LICENSE + SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT 12 MONTHS IBM LOTUS NOTES WITH COLLABORATION AUTHORIZED USER ANNUAL SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT RENEWAL IBM LOTUS COMMUNITY COLLABORATION CEO USER LICENSE + SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT 12 MONTHS IBM LOTUS COMMUNITY COLLABORATION CEO USER ANNUAL SW SUBSCRIPTION & SUPPORT RENEWAL £13.04 £10.11 £2.64 £73.04 £18.92 £101.00 £26.25 £147.00 £29.35 Microsoft pricing Microsoft pricing is based on a client access license and a server based license as well. Microsoft provide a “Microsoft Licensing Advisor” tool that is an easy-to-use online advisor that can help you find and select Microsoft products, find the right Volume Licensing program, and determine estimated retail pricing (ERP) based on your software needs. This tool identified that all three of the user estate sizes fell into the SELECT program (BAND A) for volume perpetual licensing. As this exercise is designed at reaching an optimum cost for the term of three years and has the value of the licenses at the end – like the IBM model – perpetual pricing was chosen in preference to subscription licensing. Microsoft is cumulative. For example, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 CAL requires the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 CAL to provide “Directory Services”. This is also true when you add in further functionality like Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007. For this reason, Microsoft often bundle these client access licenses. This is discussed below: vii
Slide 10: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION IBM also provide similar “Complete Enterprise Offering” bundles – which are similar to Microsoft’s client access license bundles. These are summarised below: Microsoft Core Client Access License Suite The Microsoft Core Client Access License (CAL) Suite gives customers a simple, cost-effective way to purchase key Microsoft technologies through a single license agreement. The Microsoft Core CAL Suite covers four fundamental Microsoft server products that provide users with identity management, directory services, enterprise communication (e-mail, calendar functions, and scheduling), collaborative workspaces, and asset management. • • • • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 CAL Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Standard CAL Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard CAL Microsoft System Centre Configuration Manager 2007 Configuration Management License The Microsoft Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) Suite allows customers to buy eleven Microsoft products to provide users people with products that allow compliance, real-time collaboration, security, communication, desktop management, and more. The Microsoft Enterprise CAL Suite provides a significant cost savings compared to the purchasing of individual CALs. Customers considering investments in just two of the products included in the suite will find Microsoft Enterprise CAL Suite becomes saves them money. • • • • • • • • • • • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 CAL Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Standard CAL Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise CAL Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard CAL Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise CAL Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Standard CAL Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Enterprise CAL Microsoft Systems Centre Configuration Manager 2007 Configuration Management License Microsoft System Centre Operations Manager 2007 Client Monitoring Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services Microsoft Forefront Security Suite Microsoft Products Microsoft Office Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License (021-05339) Microsoft Core CAL (Client Access License) Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License User CAL (W06-00426) Microsoft Enterprise CAL Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License User CAL User CAL w/ Services (76A-00182) Microsoft Exchange Enterprise CAL w Svc Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License User CAL User CAL (9MB-00896) Microsoft Exchange Server Enterprise Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License Cost £492.00 £231.00 £450.00 £72.00 £5,007.00
Slide 11: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION Microsoft Exchange Server Standard Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License Microsoft Exchange Standard CAL Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License User CAL User CAL (394-00529) Microsoft Forefront Client Security Single Monthly Subscriptions-Volume License Microsoft Volume License Per User (UFB00054) Microsoft Forefront Sec Exchange Svr Single Monthly Subscriptions-Volume License Microsoft Volume License Per User (9SG-00054) Microsoft Forefront Sec Off Comm Svr Sngl Monthly Subscriptions-Volume License Microsoft Volume License Per User (HTC-00087) Microsoft Forefront Sec SharePoint Single Monthly Subscriptions-Volume License Microsoft Volume License Per User (9SH-00054) Microsoft Office Comm Server Ent CAL Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License User CAL User CAL (KMA-00672) Microsoft Office Comm Server Ent Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License (KPA-00241) Microsoft Office Comm Server Std CAL Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License User CAL User Microsoft Office Comm Server Std Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License (KNA-00241) Microsoft Office SharePoint CAL Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License User CAL User CAL (H05-00445) Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License (H04-00231) Microsoft SharePoint Enterprise CAL Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License User CAL User CAL (76N-02439) Microsoft SQL Server Standard Edition Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License (228-04538) Microsoft Windows Server Std w/o Hyper-V Sngl License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License (LTA-00197) £816.00 £84.00 £0.60 £0.70 £0.34 £0.34 £162.00 £4,662.00 £36.00 £816.00 £111.00 £5,154.00 £90.00 £6,600.00 £837.00
Slide 12: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION Microsoft Windows Server CAL Single License/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License User CAL Microsoft Windows Vista Business Single Upgrade/Software Assurance Pack Microsoft Volume License w/Vis Enterprise (66J-00868) £36.00 £252.00 Hardware pricing As noted above – hardware is a commodity – so rather than base designs on a specific item and price we have chosen a generic size for servers and storage. We then requested the prices from several manufacturers and developed at an approximation for acquisition and support costs. The model has very low sensitivity to actual hardware costs as we shall see in the detailed analysis below. The following has been established as the servers required by the various designs: Hardware Products Small Application Server 2 Core, 2 GB (Storage Separate) Small Application Server Maintenance Costs Medium Application Server 4 Core, 4 GB (Storage Separate) Medium Application Server Maintenance Costs Large Application Server 8 Core, 8 GB (Storage Separate) Large Application Server Maintenance Costs Enterprise Application Server 16 Core, 16 GB (Storage Separate) Enterprise Application Server Maintenance Costs 300 GB SAS 15K Disk Acquisition Costs 300 GB SAS 15K Disk Maintenance 146 GB SAS 15K Disk Acquisition Costs 146 GB SAS 15K Disk Maintenance TS3400 Storage Expansion Acquisition Costs TS3400 Storage Expansion Support Costs TS3100 Tape Library Acquisition Costs TS3100 Tape Library Support Costs Tape Set (Single Set) Acquisition Costs TS3100 Tape Media Acquisition Costs Cost £2,500.00 £300.00 £3,500.00 £400.00 £5,000.00 £600.00 £6,000.00 £650.00 £450.00 £40.00 £240.00 £30.00 £6,500.00 £400.00 £6,500.00 £400.00 £300.00 £900.00
Slide 13: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION Storage Costs In addition to this, storage costs need to be accounted for. The servers above have been priced to include two 146GB RAID 1 mirrors using 146GB 15K SAS drives for OS and Logging. Each storage design has been based on 15K SAS disks. Backup solutions have also been included for completeness. See the hardware storage costs above. Other Costs Finally there are the other costs. These are shown in the table below: Other Products / Support MacAfee Client Anti Virus License Perpetual License + 3 years Subscription Server Annual Support Costs Backup Agent for Domino Agents Including 3 yrs maintenance Backup Agent for Windows Server Including 3 yrs maintenance Backup Agent for SQL Server Including 3 yrs maintenance Cost £34.00 £6,000.00 £540.00 £320.00 £1,500.00
Slide 14: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION HIGH LEVEL DESIGNS The following diagrams and notes illustrate the modelled environments and our design goals for each platform. IBM Lotus Domino Simple Mail Architecture IBM Lotus Domino Messaging architecture is relatively straight forward for smaller organisations. The core messaging server, if properly planned and implemented can scale to in excess of 10,000 users. Messaging servers tend to rely, to a large extent, on their disk subsystem design and throughput. This design scales easily between 500 and 4000 users according to the sizing tools. Additional storage was catered for by including an external storage array for the larger estates. This design requires the IBM Lotus Domino Messaging process value unit licence and IBM Lotus Messaging client access licensing for user licensing. There are a variety of Antivirus and Anti-Spam solutions for the IBM Lotus Domino environment. Most of them are priced based on the number of seats. Choosing one – MacAfee – as a market leading product it is possible to arrive at a price per user per month (RRP) of £35 per user the perpetual licence with three years with maintenance included. These prices reduce with the size of the platform – but a common price will be assumed. Other applications are accessible using the standard IBM Lotus Domino Messaging server licence. Document Libraries, Team Places and Discussion databases come as standard with this server licence. This platform can also run bespoke IBM Lotus Notes Applications using the Utility (or Enterprise) licence which can be used to support line of business applications. The extensible nature of this platform has made it very popular as a web server as well. Customers are not restricted to the IBM Lotus Notes client; it is possible to step down to the IBM Domino Web Access (or iNotes) client which is accessed using a web browser. This licence costs less than the full IBM Lotus Notes client access license IBM Lotus Notes Traveller (which will soon support iPhone) allows push email support to be extended to a range of mobile devices in much the same way as RIM’s Blackberry. IBM Lotus Domino directory services can run isolated from the organisations Active Directory (if one exists) and be published via LDAP. This also means that the directory is optimised for Mail routing and security. IBM publishes a hardened configuration that allows most Domino implementations to sit in the DMZ or for them to be accessible directly from the Internet (via reverse proxies) to route email. IBM Lotus Domino Mail - Clustered Mail Architecture IBM Lotus Domino clustering technology is relatively straight forward – building as it does on its unique replication service.
Slide 15: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION A minimum of two and maximum of six servers can form a cluster. IBM Lotus Domino Enterprise PVU licensing is required to enable clustering. The amount of disk space needs to be doubled for each user. This allows a full replica of a users email to be made on the cluster mate. IBM Lotus Domino servers will dynamically spread the user load across cluster members. This happens automatically when the cluster is created – the IBM Lotus Notes client registers that fact that the users home mail server is clustered and stores the cluster mate in its desktop configuration. IBM Lotus Domino replication (both clustered and scheduled) can occur across low latency and low bandwidth links – but for the best results it is best to plan wide area network capacity to meet the demands placed on it. For example, if you wish to failover to a cluster mate – the user’s perception of the service will be set by the response time in a failover situation. The implementation of wide area network optimisation technologies – like Riverbed – can dramatically improve performance and response times whilst reducing/containing your network costs. At Applicable, we often implement clustered designs to allow administrators the freedom to perform programmed or corrective action during normal business hours. This allows clustered environments to present at least four nines availability and be comfortable that it is realistic and achievable. Another key benefit of this clustering technology is the ability to have expensive servers deliver email services to your users – then fail-over to inexpensive servers (for service windows for example). IBM Lotus Domino servers perform this by allowing clusters to be made up of mail servers on different operating system – which IBM Lotus Domino supports. This extends to multiple partitions too – for larger estates it is possible to create cluster mates that are actually virtualised or IBM Lotus Domino partitioned servers – allowing you to reduce your availability infrastructure footprint further still. Clustered Mail Architecture with a remote Disaster Recovery site A common infrastructure we implement and recommend extends the basic IBM Lotus Domino clustering is to a remote location. This depends on relatively good network links between the users and the two server locations and also between the locations. IBM Lotus Domino Enterprise PVU licensing is required. The amount of disk space needs to be doubled for each user. A disaster recovery planning often referred to synonymously as a business continuity planning (BCP) — is a comprehensive set of measures and procedures put into place within an organization to ensure that essential, mission critical resources and infrastructures are maintained or backed up by alternatives during various stages of a disaster. Typically, planning for disasters and how to recover must address three areas: Prevention (pre-disaster): The pre-planning required — using clustered servers for critical systems, maintaining hot sites, training disaster recovery personnel — to minimize the overall impact of a disaster on systems and resources. This pre-planning also maximizes the ability of an organization to recover from a disaster.
Slide 16: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION Continuity (during a disaster): The process of maintaining core, mission-critical systems and resource "skeletons" (the bare minimum assets required to keep an organization in operational status) and/or initiating secondary recovery sites during a disaster. Continuity measures prevent the whole organisation from failing to support essential business processes, systems and resources. Recovery (post-disaster): The steps required for the restoration of all systems and resources to full, normal operational status. This is often the hardest part of managing the disaster – what happens to the email you sent or received during the disaster – how do you re-integrate this into your production environment. Fortunately, IBM Lotus Domino Replication can automatically re-synchronise your information when your primary site becomes operational. IBM Lotus Domino clusters will dynamically spread the user load across the three servers – however, it’s helpful to keep the DR site isolated from users during normal operation. This solution provides an enhanced recovery time objective (RTO) of minutes (the time taken to recover the service). Recover Point Objectives remain defined by the tape backup/restore cycle which is usually every 24 hours. Microsoft Exchange Architectures Microsoft TechNet viii offers four types of architecture for Microsoft Exchange 2007 deployments. Simple – for smaller organisations of 25 to 1000 – where most of the Microsoft Exchange 2007 server roles sit on a single physical server. Microsoft Exchange 20007 Edge services have to be deployed separately. Most designs of this category will include at least three servers – one that provides the Microsoft Global Address List service, one combined Microsoft Exchange 2007 Mailbox, Client Access and Hub Transport servers (usually sitting on a Microsoft Windows Server Active Directory Domain Controller) and the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Edge server role mentioned above. Standard which is for larger user estates in a single Microsoft Exchange 2007 organisation – the point where scaling out to multiple servers becomes necessary is not clearly stated on TechNet – but the sizing tools all return the design shown below for 500 users and above. Large this is for distributed user estates with multiple service delivery and client locations. Complex this is for multiple directories and/or environments that have synchronised directories. For the purposes of this comparison, the designs will fall into the first two. The first scenario covering 500 users will be a simple design with an Microsoft Exchange 2007 server with Microsoft Exchange 2007 Mailbox, Client Access and Hub Transport server roles along with the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Edge server and a Microsoft Windows Server Domain Controller providing the Global Address List. Design for 500 Users A simple Microsoft Exchange 2007 organisation with multiple servers can also consist of a Microsoft infrastructure solution known as Centro. Centro is the code name for a new infrastructure solution designed for mid-sized businesses that have between 25 and 250 personal computers. Centro is built on top of the technologies in Microsoft Windows Server 2008. During the planning phase of your deployment, and before you deploy any Microsoft Exchange 2007 servers in a simple Microsoft Exchange organization, Microsoft ask that you consider the following points: 1. Microsoft recommends that you deploy the single-server simple Microsoft Exchange organization only when using Windows Small Business Server. (up to 250 users) 2. Microsoft also recommends that you deploy the multiple-server simple Microsoft Exchange organization only when using Centro. The design we have arrived at for 500 users is shown below: -
Slide 17: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION Moving to a larger user base – it is necessary to move away from the Simple/Centro approach and use the standard design with multiple physical servers supporting the various Microsoft Exchange roles. Standard designs are highly dependent on Microsoft’s Active Directory design and location. The design below has not included a dedicated Domain Controller and it is not recommended by Microsoft that any of the Microsoft Exchange server roles share a physical server with the Domain Controller role. The design above scaled easily between 1,000 and 4,000 users according to the sizing tools. Additional storage had to be catered for by including an external storage array for the larger estate. The Microsoft Exchange 2007 Mailbox and Client Access server roles also had to be augmented with extra processor and memory for 1,000, 2,000 and 4,000 users respectively. Microsoft Exchange 2007 Small Environment in a single data centre hosted on customer site. Initial Design Capacity: from 1000-4000 Users Total Storage: 500 MB Quotas Available Source: System Centre Capacity Planner 2007 CUSTOMER NETWORK Clustered Microsoft Exchange 2007 Designs Designed from 500 users Outlook Cached Mode Based on “Average Users” - per System Centre Capacity Planner 100% Concurrency Rate / from 500 Active Connections GIGABIT ETHERNET CUSTOMER DATA CENTER Exchange Hub Transport Exchange Edge Exchange Mailbox Exchange Client Access There are two methodologies to cluster Microsoft Exchange 2007 server environments. In a production environment, only Microsoft Exchange 2007 Enterprise Edition is supported in a Microsoft Windows failover cluster; Microsoft Exchange 2007 Standard Edition is not supported in a Windows failover cluster in production. The two mechanisms are Standby Continuous Replication and Cluster continuous replication. Cluster continuous replication has the closest functionality to IBM Lotus Domino clustering with the exception that it is not an Active-Active cluster technology. It does support multiple passive nodes however which in turn can support the disaster recovery scenario. Cluster continuous replication is a high availability feature of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 that combines the asynchronous log shipping and replay technology built into Microsoft Exchange 2007 with the failover and management features provided by Microsoft’s Cluster service. Exchange (Hub Transport) 2 x Core + 2 GB Volume 1 (Data Files) – RAID 1 – 2 x 146GB SAS 15K (146GB) Volume 2 (Log Files) – RAID 1 – 2 x 146GB SAS 15K (146GB) Exchange (Edge) 2 x Core + 2 GB Volume 1 (Data Files) – RAID 1 – 2 x 146GB SAS 15K (146GB) Volume 2 (Log Files) – RAID 1 – 2 x 146GB SAS 15K (146GB) Exchange (Client Access) 2 x Core + 2 GB Volume 1 (Data Files) – RAID 1 – 2 x 146GB SAS 15K (146GB) Exchange (Mailbox Role) 2 x Core + 2 GB Volume 0 (System) – RAID 1 – 2 x 146GB SAS 10K (146 Volume 1 (Data Files) – RAID 10 – 4 x 300GB SAS 15K (600GB) Volume 2 (Log Files) – RAID 1 – 2 x 146GB SAS 15K (146GB) Exchange Server Organisation Cluster continuous replication is designed to provide high availability for Microsoft Exchange 2007 Mailbox servers by providing a solution that: • Has no single point of failure • Has no special hardware requirements • Has no shared storage requirements
Slide 18: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION • Can be deployed in one or two data centre configurations • Can reduce full backup frequency, reduce total backed up data volume, and shorten the service level agreement for recovery time from first failure. Cluster continuous replication environments are only supported when deployed with Microsoft Exchange 2007 Enterprise Edition server and client licensing. When you deploy Microsoft Exchange 2007 in a failover cluster, an Enterprise Edition licence is required for each node on which Exchange 2007 is installed. Microsoft Exchange 2007 also comes in two client access licence editions, which are also called Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition. You can mix and match the server editions with the CAL editions. For example, you can use Microsoft Exchange 2007 Enterprise Edition client access licenses against Microsoft Exchange 2007 Standard Edition. Similarly, you can use Microsoft Exchange 2007 Standard Edition client access licenses against Microsoft Exchange 2007 Server Enterprise Edition. The Microsoft Exchange 2007 Enterprise Edition client access license is an additive license, which means that you buy the Microsoft Exchange 2007 Standard Edition client access license, and then add a Microsoft Exchange 2007 Enterprise Edition client access license on top of it. The key client access license differences which affect clustering are highlighted below: - Standby continuous replication requires a physical failover – this means that whilst suitable for a disaster recover situation, where you have time to cut users over it does not fulfil the requirements of “high availability”. Highly available systems require a dynamic approach which is only supported by the virtualised service offered by cluster continuous replication. This requires an Microsoft Exchange 2007 Enterprise client access license and a Microsoft Exchange 2007 Enterprise Server licence. Standby continuous replication also requires shared storage – which becomes a single point of failure and also rules out remote data centre designs. This demonstrates the need for the Microsoft Exchange 2007 Hub Transport Server role to host the “Witness File Share”. This is part of the quorum model that prevents “split-brain” syndrome by ensuring that the third member confirms the heartbeat status of the two members of the cluster. The Microsoft System Centre Capacity Planner model generated for cluster continuous replication is shown below – with the associated box count design: The design above contains two boxes for each node role. Using cluster continuous replication, it is necessary to split out the Microsoft Exchange 2007 Server Hub role from the others. The Microsoft Exchange 2007 Edge server role already needs to be split out. This means that the minimum box design for this functionality is: • Microsoft Exchange 2007 Mailbox role + Microsoft Exchange 2007 Client Access role (x2) • Microsoft Exchange 2007 Hub Transport role (x2) • Microsoft Exchange 2007 Edge server role (x2) • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Domain Controllers (x2) Each of these servers can be scaled up to support 1,000, 2,000 or 4,000 user Stretched Clustered Exchange Designs Microsoft use the term “stretched” clusters to encompass clusters that extend to multiple data centres. This is facilitated by repeating the hardware necessary to support normal operations to a second data centre and enabling cluster continuous replication for this environment. A box count design (derived from Microsoft System Centre Planner) is shown below.
Slide 19: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION This solution could also support the recovery point objective and recover time objective targets met by the IBM Lotus Domino design. The key differences highlighted below: between the platforms are It would not provide the same level of load balancing. However the service virtualisation facilitates seamless failover in the event of an agreed outage. Log Shipping happens when logs are closed – which is usually every few minutes – this means that there is a window when data may be lost. IBM Lotus Domino servers replicate continuously minimising data loss. Log shipping happens in clear text – and may be intercepted – a separate encryption solution should be put in place (or a private network link put in place) to prevent information leakage.
Slide 20: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION DETAILED FINDINGS Using the input above it is possible to create a financial model that we can summarise in the following three sections: - Microsoft Total Cost of Ownership The first is a table of costs for the four user estates for the three scenarios: - Two things are clear from this chart: • User estate size is inversely proportional to the cost per person. You get more value when more users that are hosted on the same estate. • The cost per user goes up in a linear fashion from singleton to more complex clustered technologies. This is trend is reinforced for final scenario because users have to deploy the Microsoft Exchange Enterprise client access license which adds significantly to the costs for the clustered design. Microsoft Office 2007 Cost Impact When including the licence for the Client Software (Microsoft Office 2007 Professional – with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007) in this case the following table is generated:- This adds approximately £ 13.67 per user per month to the costs for the three your term. It could be argued that the user would have Microsoft Office installed anyway. This is not necessarily the case however, alternative office product suites are available, one of which Symphony is included in the IBM pricing below. Previous versions of Microsoft Office, though possibly not covered by Software Assurance may also be installed – it is possible to access the Microsoft Exchange 2007 service from Microsoft Outlook 2003 with reduced functionality for example. Microsoft argues that Microsoft Office 2007 is the client software to the Microsoft Office Enterprise suite of server applications that include: • • • • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Microsoft Office Performance Point Server Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft Dynamics Server which includes Dynamics CRM, Navision and others However, unless you are using these middleware applications as line of business tools, the full value of Office is not realised. IBM Total Cost of Analysis The table below shows the costs for a similar function point estate when delivered using IBM Technology: -
Slide 21: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION This includes the entire client costs required to access the estate (as well as the IBM Lotus Symphony Office Productivity suite). It is clear from this table that the platform costs are significantly less than the equivelant Microsoft platform – reflecting the reduced box count required as well as the reduced license costs. The support costs also have a large fixed component to reflect support for the server estate – this is much lower than the equivalent Microsoft estate. Comparative Analysis These tables show the comparative cost savings between the IBM messaging solution and the comparative Microsoft Solutions excluding Microsoft Office prices: Singleton Mail – Cost Comparison The table above lays out the costs per user per month for each of the designs. It also splits the costs in the segments of Licence, Platform and Support. This table is represented in the chart below:- This clearly illustrates the potential cost differences between IBM solutions and Microsoft solutions. It also shows quite clearly that whilst some of the difference can be accounted for in licences, the larger hardware platforms required to support the Microsoft estate least to large support costs, especially for smaller customers. The costs for the platform acquisition in terms of price per user, remain steady through all the scenarios of customer estates sizes – hardware is a small cost in proportion to the other larger categories. However, the support costs are made of two subcategories – user support and administration and server support and administration. The relatively large number of physical servers in proportion to the estate size means that the Microsoft designs incur significantly more costs here. The effect of this wears off with more users on the platform – as this cost becomes less per user. Licence costs are also generally higher for Microsoft than IBM customers. Typically between 50 pence and 70 pence a user cheaper for IBM estates. This seems to follow the user estate size fairly closely – these charges are based on seat counts not one off charges – although there is a server charge element. Microsoft Office 2007 Professional includes Microsoft Outlook 2007. The list price of £492.00 broken down over the three year investment period works out at £13.67 per user per month. Including this £13.57 per user per month charge for Microsoft Office 2007 more than doubles the per user cost for small estates. This is shown in the table above. Note, it is possible to access
Slide 22: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION some of the features within Microsoft Exchange 2007 using previous versions of Microsoft Office. Many of our customers seek to invest in their email infrastructure to deliver a robust, reliable and cost effective service. The evidence from this comparison based on the email provision delivered by the designs above – which has identical service characteristics – is clear. IBM Lotus Domino solutions are clearly cheaper for this part of the market. The relative savings are shown below: - When we look at the trends for these savings, we see another interesting trend. As the estate grows larger, the individual components the represent the largest elements within the cost base reduce as a proportion. Both estates are trending to a base cost which is dominated by CAL licensing. This chart re-inforces the savings accrued through IBM platform implementations, but also emphasises that this is particularly so for small customers. This chart excludes Microsoft Office. If we were to include Microsoft Office these savings range from 65 to 69%. Clustered Mail – Cost Comparison Both IBM and Microsoft include an additional licence charge for delivering a clustered solution. In the case of IBM – this is a server only charge – you need to deploy the IBM Lotus Enterprise Server. Microsoft have both a client and server based charge for enterprise license implementations. These are needed to deploy clustered platforms. This Microsoft Exchange Enterprise client access license is reflected in sharply higher per user charges for licensing over the IBM equivelant. This is shown in the chart below: - The other aspect of clustering that makes IBM Lotus Domino cheaper is its relative simplicity. The minimum number of servers required for a cluster is two (the maximum supported is six). This means that as you add servers to the cluster you double the hardware acquisition and support costs. Microsoft also doubles up but to form a quorum for CCR you need three servers as a minimum and you generally start from a larger estate. This is reflected in the chart below showing the larger fixed support costs for smaller user estates vs. smaller support costs for IBM and larger Microsoft estates. The Microsoft model for clustering does not scale to smaller sites particularly efficiently. Clustered Mail – Savings Analysis The statement above is borne out by the relative savings incurred by IBM platforms over Microsoft platforms shown in the table below: - IBM is between 49% cheaper for small sites and 16% cheaper for larger sites.
Slide 23: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION These chart also highlights the relative penalty that smaller customers pay for deploying a clustered Microsoft solution. This reflects the relatively high fixed costs per user. Cluster and Disaster Recovery – Cost Comparison Moving to an enhanced recoverability design – a disaster recovery site with at least passive clustering incurs a lot of cost for the Microsoft solution. This is shown in the table below: - These costs do not include Microsoft Office 2007 - much of the conclusions for the clustered solution can be repeated here for the same reasons – they are exagerated by the increasing platform size needed to support the same functionality within offered by IBM with three servers. The implication of these costs is that it is begining to become prohibitive for smaller sites to implement this level of business continuity planning. Cluster and DR – Savings Analysis And again – the straight savings (without Microsoft Office licence costs) can be drawn out as below: - This can be drawn out in the chart below – reflecting between 20 and 48% savings. If we were to include Microsoft Office 2007 costs these savings become substantial: - Overall Comparison Another way to look at these costs is to project the increasing functionality on the x-axis against cost on the y-axis – the reader can get a view about the relative costs for a specific function point compare – and how these costs scale for user estate size. The table below illustates these (without Microsoft Office): -
Slide 24: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION The following chart displays this graphically. It is clear to see two things from this chart: 1. Microsoft is more expensive in terms of costs per user by some margin for all estate volumes. It is roughly the same cost per user to deploy 1,000 IBM Lotus Domino users as it is to deploy 4,000 Microsoft Exchange 2007 users. This is an indication of the cost scalability of the two solutions. 2. Microsoft becomes more expensive relatively to IBM Lotus the more availability and recoverability you build into the platform at a higher rate than IBM’s solution. If you include Microsoft Office 2007 productivity suite in the equation the results are stark.
Slide 25: THE COST OF MOVING TO ADVANCED COLLABORATION About Us As a mature IT professional services organisation and managed services provider (MSP), Applicable have longstanding associations with a range of vendors. Our accreditations underpin our commitment to delivering the right level of skills and experience to your projects, and to the quality of service delivery. Extensive references for the delivery of Microsoft platforms enable our accreditation as a Microsoft Gold Partner. Our four competencies are focused on our messaging and collaboration solutions provision, which is bolstered by our hosting expertise. Membership of the IBM Partner Programme as a Premier Partner underlines our commitment to the IBM Software product range. We manage thousands of Domino mailboxes for customers, and maintaining our Premier Partner status is key to ensuring we remain at the forefront of IBM collaboration technologies, including both IBM Lotus applications and WebSphere Portal. Applicable have delivered services to BT Global Services for several years. We are proud to be able to display the ‘Delivering Technology Solutions With BT’ logo. It underlines our commitment to working with BT Global Services to deliver a wide variety of services. These range from hosted IBM collaboration solutions and professional services, Microsoft Exchange and collaboration solutions and IBM WebSphere hosting and support. Many of Applicable's customer implementations are hosted in data centre facilities, whether they are customer data centres, IBM or BT data centres, or our own facility in Global Switch in London. Having complex implementations in remote locations it is essential that we can provide the very best level of communications support. We have a team of highly trained and qualified Cisco engineers, who complete implementations and provide 24x7 support cover for our networks. We have attained the Registered Partner accreditation from Cisco, with Security VPN/Firewall Express Specialisation. References Microsoft Systems Centre Capacity Planner 2007 - http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/capacityplanner.aspx [accessed 08/05/2009] ii Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Planning Tool http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=06793661-CD69-4490-BB4BE97DD271209D&displaylang=en [accessed 08/05/2009] iii Microsoft Exchange Server (TechNet) - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/bb124558.aspx [accessed 19/05/2009] iv IBM Workload Estimator (WLE) - http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/tools/estimator/ [accessed 08/05/2009] v IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8 Deployment Guide - http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247506.html [accessed 08/05/2009] vi Pricing derived from IBM’s US website - http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/ [accessed 13/05/2009] vii Microsoft Licensing Advisor - http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/MLA/ [accessed 14/05/2009] viii Source: TechNet: Cluster Continuous Replication - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124521.aspx [Accessed 26/05/2009] i