TCO Config
The TCO Configuration section allows you to customize cost settings for your migration assessment. Accurate financial assumptions are critical for realistic cost comparisons and return‑on‑investment estimates. Use this page to tune the numbers behind every report.
TCO Configuration Components
You can adjust the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) settings that Dr Migrate uses to generate financial reports. Whilst default settings are provided you can optionally adjust as desired.
Azure Cost Config
Azure Cost Config allows you to configure the high level elements of your overall TCO, including Currency, Primary Azure Region and default Azure Payment Models. These settings will inform the settings that Dr Migrate uses to price discovered VMs.
The Azure Cost Config section provides a comprehensive interface for managing all Azure-related cost parameters. You’ll find configuration options organized into logical groups, making it easy to adjust settings for different aspects of your Azure migration costs.
Azure Payment Models
This section provides control of the different payment modes to apply to virtual machines running in Azure, separated by Prod and Non-Prod workloads.
Production Workloads: Configure payment models for production environments, including options for Reserved Instances, Pay-as-you-go, and Hybrid Benefit pricing.
Non-Production Workloads: Set payment models for development, testing, and staging environments, often with different pricing structures than production.
Additional Services: You can also choose which environments should have Azure Backup, Azure Site Recovery, or Defender for Cloud applied to them, or have disaster recovery enabled by default.
Hybrid Benefits: Choose to automatically apply Azure Hybrid Benefit pricing by using the “Use Dev/Test Pricing” switch.
Intel Work Optimization: Intel Work Optimization can be automatically applied by selecting ‘Use Workload Optimized SKUs’.
Treatment Savings Assumptions
Calculating cloud hosting costs for all treatment types requires making assumptions due to the uncertainty of future state architecture. Without precise future state costs, savings must be estimated. Dr. Migrate applies default savings based on the IaaS hosting cost of an application. For instance, if an application undergoes the ‘Replace’ treatment, Dr. Migrate calculates its IaaS hosting cost in Azure and applies the corresponding assumed savings.
The Treatment Savings Assumptions section allows you to configure these savings percentages for different migration treatment types. You can adjust the default values based on your organization’s specific requirements and migration strategy.
Hybrid Benefits (Optional)
Dr Migrate’s TCO engine can help recommend the number of Software Assured licenses required to maximize Hybrid benefit savings.
Enter the number of Software Assured licensed cores in the provided input fields. These values will be used in the Hybrid Benefits section of Dr Migrate’s report to help minimize costs and maximize Hybrid environment benefits by providing more accurate recommendations.
The Hybrid Benefits configuration includes fields for:
- Windows Server licenses - Number of Software Assured licensed cores
- SQL Server licenses - Number of SQL Server Software Assured licensed cores
- RDS licenses - Number of Remote Desktop Services licenses
For more information on Azure Hybrid Benefits see here
AVS Settings (Optional)
Dr Migrate allows you to configure AVS (Azure VMware Solution) related settings which will be applied to all workloads tagged for AVS-based hosting.
Dr Migrate has recommended settings as the defaults below which can be tailored to your preferences as required.
Sizing Criteria: Choose between As-is Sized or Right-Sized configurations.
Node Type Preference: Optionally select your preferred AVS node type, choose from:
- Best Fit - Dr Migrate will evaluate the best AVS SKU for the scanned environment
- AV36 - Only the AV36 SKU will be used
- AV36P - Only the AV36P SKU will be used
- AV52 - Only the AV52 SKU will be used
- AV64 - Only the AV64 SKU will be used
Comfort Factor: When applying right-sizing, how much headroom to make available? This setting determines the buffer space allocated for performance and growth.
Reserved Instances: Choose the duration of reserved instances for cost savings:
- PAYG - No Reserved instances will be applied
- 1 Year Reserved Instance - Apply 1-year reserved instance pricing
- 3 Year Reserved Instance - Apply 3-year reserved instance pricing for maximum savings
Storage Utilization: Set the utilization of your on-premises storage. This affects how storage costs are calculated in the TCO analysis.
Dedupe and Compression Factor: Specifies the anticipated deduplication and compression factor for your workloads. A value of 3 would mean 3x, so for 300GB disk only 100GB storage would be used. A value of 1 would mean no deduplication or compression. The default value is set to 1.5. Adjust the slider or input box to specify the desired ratio.
FTT Settings, Raid Level: Specifies the valid combination of Failures to Tolerate and RAID combinations. The selected FTT option combined with RAID level and the on-premises vSphere VM disk requirement will determine the total vSAN storage required in Azure VMware Solution. The default setting is 1, RAID-5. Use the dropdown menu to choose a different RAID level if needed.
Memory Overcommit Factor: Specifies the ratio of memory overcommit on the cluster, used to balance performance and cost. A value of 1 represents 100% memory use, 0.5, for example is 50%, and 2 would be using 200% of available memory. The default value is set to 1. Adjust the slider or input box to set the desired overcommit factor.
VMware Environment Options: Check one or more of these options to have them applied to your report:
- Customer will BYO VMware VCF license - If the customer has existing VCF licenses, AVS Express will use these instead of costing in VCF licenses
- Already running at least one AVS cluster in the same Azure Target Region - Ensure configuration accounts for existing AVS infrastructure
On-Premises Benchmark
Dr Migrate will by default estimate your customers’ On-Premises costs using industry benchmarks. The overall structure of this method is based on Azure TCO Cost Calculator, however instead of having to enter each line item, Dr Migrate automatically populates based on the scan of your environment from Azure Migrate.
Each of these industry benchmarks are configurable, and the results will be reflected within Dr Migrate’s reports.
You can choose to adjust default benchmark settings at an overall level - Total Cost Method, or at an individual line item level.
The On-Premises Benchmark section provides a comprehensive view of all cost components that contribute to your current on-premises infrastructure costs, including hardware, software, power, cooling, and operational expenses.
Total Cost Method
The Total Cost Method allows you to override all individual cost calculations with a single, overall cost figure. This is useful when you have a known total cost for your data center operations.
As an example, if your customer pays a flat rate of a million dollars for their data center yearly, then you can override all calculations accordingly. Dr Migrate will distribute this total cost across the relevant components based on industry-standard ratios.
To use the Total Cost Method:
- Select the “Total Cost Method” option
- Enter your known total annual cost
- Dr Migrate will automatically distribute this cost across all cost categories
Detailed Cost Method
The Detailed Cost Method allows you to fine-tune individual cost components while maintaining the overall cost structure.
You can adjust one, or many individual line items depending on your specific requirements and knowledge of your environment.
Step 1
Select Detailed Cost Method
Step 2
Expand the cost item to configure and update the value in the Customer Value field as desired.
The Detailed Cost Method provides granular control over:
- Hardware costs - Servers, storage, networking equipment
- Software licensing - Operating systems, databases, applications
- Operational costs - Power, cooling, maintenance, personnel
- Facility costs - Data center space, security, compliance
How are Total Costs Calculated?
Total Cost overrides are distributed based on the associated relevant components. Costs are distributed on a per-core or per-GB basis where relevant.
Dr Migrate uses intelligent algorithms to ensure that cost distribution is realistic and follows industry standards. For example:
- Server costs are distributed based on CPU cores and memory
- Storage costs are distributed based on capacity and performance tiers
- Network costs are distributed based on bandwidth requirements
- Operational costs are distributed based on infrastructure size and complexity
This ensures that your TCO analysis provides accurate and meaningful cost comparisons between your current on-premises environment and the proposed Azure migration.