D2 3 Computing e-Infrastructure cost calculations and business _models_vam1-final

e-­‐FISCAL: www.efiscal.eu
EC Contract Number: 283449
Increasing complexity of data &
difficulty of data gathering
Full cost
accounting
• Detailed line item costs
• Lengthy calculations
• Actual costs, since purchase
Total cost of
ownership
• Detailed line item cost projections
over the lifetime of equipment
/project
• Predicted total cost over given
timescale
E-­‐FISCAL
annual cost
• Estimated year operating
costs
• Annualized cost of
simulated infrastructure
• E-­‐FISCAL yearly cost
Past
Today
Future
Figure 8: Comparing TCO, FCA and e-­‐FISCAL methodology in cost calculations
As it can be inferred by the graph above Full Cost Accounting may end up using obsolete assumptions, whereas
TCO requires making assumptions on the whole lifecycle of the equipment (which in the case of machine rooms
can be decades), bringing in their own uncertainties. Our proposed hybrid methodology is suitable for estimating
the level and breakdown of current costs as well as allowing for the accurate projection into the short-­‐term. The
approach balances the level of detail and the accuracy of necessary costs against the effort required to gather and
report the cost data. Moreover, it accounts for costs incurred but not paid by the site. As Intersect 360 comments
in both reports of 2012 and 2013, several of their respondents stated that either the facilities cost were not in
their budget or that they did not pay for every item (such as power or building/floor space) in their budget.
3.3 Research setting
In order to be able to approximate the overall cost of the dedicated European HTC and HPC infrastructures we
would ideally need cost information from the total population of dedicated European HTC and HPC
infrastructures. However, as it is in practical terms very difficult to get data from every single HTC or HPC centre
(i.e. to run a census), our analysis is expected to come up with robust and reliable results if there is an acceptable
rate of participating entities. Having said that, it is not the absolute percentage of contributors that matter the
most; their diversity is what it counts more. In order to be able to extrapolate the findings to the whole
population of dedicated European HTC and HPC infrastructures, an adequate representation of sites/centres in
different countries, of different size and of different nature (HTC/HPC) is needed. Getting input from sites/centres
of different size would also permit the identification of any economies of scale effects.
e-­‐FISCAL : Financial Study for Sustainable Computing e-­‐Infrastructures
Deliverable D2.3 – Computing e-­‐Infrastructures cost estimation and analysis – Pricing and
Business models
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