When evaluating a product in the IT industry some of the most impressive product figures from a managerial perspective are related to the return on investment (ROI).  Too often the perception from management is that an affinity for a product is related to being the latest and greatest technology versus delivering cost savings and value to the organization. This article addresses tangible cost savings via the following items:

• Scenario 1 - 10 SQL Server environment with locally attached tape drives
• Scenario 2 - 5 SQL Server environment with centralized backups
• Additional ROI Calculations

Note - For further cost savings information, contact Skilled Software for a customized assessment of the SQL LiteSpeed savings based on the unique characteristics of your organization.

For organizations with tape drives attached to individual SQL Servers, below outlines the cost savings of an organization with 10 dual processor SQL Servers. With a total three year investment of $10,320.00 in SQL LiteSpeed a company would save $34,910.00 over that three year period.

Scenario 2 - Centralized SQL Server Backups

For organizations with centralized SQL Servers backups, below outlines the cost savings of an organization with 5 quad-processor SQL Servers. With a total three year investment of $8,760.00 in SQL LiteSpeed a company would save $24,559.00 over that three year period.

Additional ROI Calculations

When comparing SQL LiteSpeed to existing backup solutions, it is feasible to efficiently and accurately determine the cost savings based on the volume of servers, database size and tape costs. The two previous charts accurately outline these savings. In conjunction with these predictable calculations, it is necessary to aggregate the costs of the following items that differ among companies in order to determine a comprehensive ROI. Additional ROI factors include:

• Offsite tape storage –SQL LiteSpeed reduces the number of tapes needed for daily backup processes and therefore reduces the costs for offsite tape storage.
• Onsite storage space –SQL LiteSpeed reduces the number of tapes needed for a daily backup and therefore reduces the number of tapes needed on-site.
• Tape handling – By reducing the large volume of tapes for daily backups, the reduction of mistakes caused by mislabeling, filing, etc will be improved.
• Network bandwidth – Since there is always a need to copy database backups to other servers for testing restores, refreshing test environments, etc., the reduced size of the backup file will reduce the network bandwidth required to complete the operations.
• Faster backups – SQL LiteSpeed maximizes critical time for other Database processes, index rebuilds, data loads, etc. by rapidly completing backups.
• Tunable backup – SQL LiteSpeed permits configurable backup and restorations depending on the system resources being utilized to tune the backup with appropriate settings. This ability allows the backup to execute optimally with capabilities not available with any other product.
• Faster restores – In the event of a critical disaster when working through the recovery process every minute counts. By using SQL LiteSpeed your restore process is faster then the native process and much faster then a tape restore.
• Backups on disk for faster Disaster Recovery – By having SQL Server backups readily available on disk, it is not necessary to worry about handling tapes when performing a restoration. The smaller backup size allows you to keep multiple copies of the backup on disk in case it is necessary to revert to a previous restore.
• Allows extra time to run Verify option – With the increased time savings for your backup you now have time to verify your backup was a good backup. In most cases the verify takes as long as the backup. Now that the backup time has been cut in half you can use that time savings to run the verify process to validate the integrity to the backup.
• DBAs are control of database backups - Ability to execute the backups via T-SQL Jobs in SQL Server Agent or as needed in Query Analyzer rather than an unfamiliar tool that is external to SQL Server.
• Redundant copies – With compression storage savings up to 80% you have the ability to save 5 distinct copies in the same space.
• Simplification of tape backup process - Standardization for DBA’s by only having to be knowledgeable with one backup product.
• Encryption – 128 bit encryption protects your backups on disk and tape, internal and external to your organization.
• Integration - Ability to integrate with existing backup hardware and software, so a company experiences no sunk costs, but rather enhances the existing backup solution.
• Reduce staff wait time – Due to faster backups, network copies and restores, DBAs spend less time waiting for processes to finish. As such this provides DBAs with more time for additional tasks.

The savings defined in the above two scenarios is significant based on recurring disk and tape costs. As additional ROI calculations are factored into the equation the overall value derived by SQL LiteSpeed becomes much greater to organizations.

Greg Robidoux is the founder of Edgewood Solutions a database solutions company in the United States and is currently the Vice Chair of the PASS DBA Special Interest Group. He has 14 years of IT experience and has been working with databases for the last 10 years with the past four years of that with SQL Server. Greg's primary areas of focus are setting standards, disaster recovery, security and change management controls. In addition to these areas he has experience with replication, storage areas networks and SQL Server upgrades. Greg can be reached at gregr@edgewoodsolutions.com.