Pricing insanity indeed.
What's up with IBM license pricing being insanely high? I know for us it doesn't help when the Netbackup reps are willing to give their product away (free Crap is still Crap!). I've heard of numerous HUGE accounts looking into Netbackup, and with Symantec basically giving it away, how do you stop management from considering it? With IBM's pricing out of control it doesn't help. I sure hope IBM reconsiders their pricing...it's forcing people off of TSM.
Chad
I asked an IBM rep to give me some costs on a TSM server license... This is what i recieved back... ( names are removed to protect the guilty
) OH MY GOD!!! Do the sales tards at IBM just wake up everymorning and figure out a new way to make our management hate them???? If so they are doing a great job!!!
#1. TSM Extended Edition (D56FELL) -- This product is licensed by 10-packs of "processor value units"
Therefore, the qty you need to order could change if the hardware on which it is licensed changes.
For the sake of this exercise, I am using 200 processor value units (2 single core processors):
Here are some of the details of my calculation. Please feel free to call me if you are confused by these details.
2 cpu server -- 100 pvu's per core = 200 pvus
200/10 = Qty 20 to be ordered (since product is licensed by 10 pvu's.
List price - $50.83/10 pvu's
Qty 20 10pvus x $50.83 = $1,016.60
$1,016.60 -- This is the price for qty 20 10 pvu's, which covers 200 processor value units (2 core processors)
#2. TSM for Databases (D56D9LL) -- This product is also licensed by 10 pvu's
200 pvu's would require 20 10pvu's of the product.
List price 10pvus = $97.60
Qty 2- 10pvus x $97.60 = $1,952
$1,952 -- This is the price for qty 20 10pvu's, which covers 200 processor value units (2 core processors)
#3. TSM for Mail (D56Q3LL) -- This product has the same price as TSM for Databases
200 pvu's requires 20 10packs
$1,952 -- This is the price for qty 20 10pvus which covers 200 processor value units (2 core processors.)
On net backup...
I have to beat into them the fact that if you go with Netbackup you have to buy a hell of a lot more tape, or rely on crappy multiplexing and hope it works well. You'd have to get more staff to handle the administration, you lose the progressive incremental backups from TSM ( which is the father of deduplication), and you lose the built in dedupe functionality that is coming in TSM 6.1.
I then go and get quotes to size for a NetBackup infrastructure, project analyst and tape handler headcount and project software and license maintenance counts, Add in the cost of training all your people, changes to your DR and Operational infrastructure to accommodate, then have the one poor SOB on our team that had to support the crap tell them he will jump off a bridge if they make him go back to taht product, and that usually scares the hell outta management, and they stick with TSM.
To them, its all about dollars and cents. If you provide them with TCO comparisons they quickly change their tune and stick with TSM / IBM. I have to admit IBM is making it hard for us to keep the faith.