Inputs to the TCO Calculator

The calculator requires a few inputs, so I presented that:
- I’m a company with an ERP application that runs on .NET that I want to move to the cloud
- I’m using SQL server for database support
- My application needs to be highly integrated with other apps (since it’s an ERP application)
- I have a “big” application
- My application needs would grow steadily over time

Prediction

Based on that info, the calculator predicted:
- I would need 30 Windows Azure “instances” (an instance is basically a virtual server)
- I would need 2 10GB databases
- I would need 3GB of outbound bandwidth per hour
- I would spend $49,902 per year hosting my application

Can I get a discount?

Not wanting to part with $50,000, I decided that I could live with 3 “instances” (I guess I should not have picked “big” for my application type) – and that got me to $21,520/year. Not bad, especially if that means that I do not need to hire somebody to manage my infrastructure.

But don’t forget about …

Migration Costs ($17,319 according to the TCO calculator)
Application Support (my ERP application is not going to answer user questions)

Bottom Line

So the cost of putting my application (after I purchase the software) on the web, would be $17,000 plus $21,500 per year according to the TCO calculator. Of course, my actual costs would vary according to usage and my actual customization and migration costs could be wildly different that $17K, but at least I have a baseline for comparison.