Executive Summary

It’s a conundrum – research shows most organizations do not take the time and effort to undergo a data warehouse total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis, while at the same time cost overruns continue. Using TCO as a tool to understand the full scope of data warehousing costs can reduce budget surprises and mitigate risk. Our research indicates that organizations that do not conduct a TCO analysis potentially will overspend millions of dollars in three years. We’ve established a TCO model and framework that you can leverage to perform a similar study in your organization. It may save you money and valuable time.

Challenging for IT and finance, it is not simple to manage the initial and ongoing technology costs for a terabyte-plus data warehouse. It takes times and resources to effectively assess data warehousing complexities. By leveraging TCO and by conducting more in-depth IT planning and budgeting, data warehousing can be aligned to larger IT portfolio management and consolidation initiatives.

Ventana Research, a leading research and advisory services firm in data warehousing, business intelligence and performance management and Consensure, a leading business and economic case software and services company, conducted this research into data warehousing TCO to provide insight on the costs and cost variances between two large suppliers – Sun Microsystems and NCR Teradata. We accomplished this by developing and applying a TCO model to identify software, hardware and personnel costs over time. This research provides direct insight into potential financial savings, but requires that you learn how to use the savings to reach maximum benefit in your organization.