This document is an attempt at formalizing the computing overhead costs for a CIS research group with significant software development interests, such as LIAS. Please, feel free to edit this document as you see fit. -- BobKrzaczek - 28 Jul 2004

---

People

A three year cycle seems appropriate here. The rough rule of thumb known as “Moore's Law” indicates that technology more-or-less doubles every 18 months. Instead of trying to stay current all the time (which would be fairly expensive in the long run), I'm proposing that we skip every other generation of technology; most modern software packages support at least the previous generation of hardware before considering it “obsolete”.

Year 1: Mobile

$3,500 per person.

This cost is based on the need for a relatively powerful notebook or laptop computer. Staff members do more than simply "run Microsoft Office"; much of our software is intentionally written to be portable across a wide range of machines. In this way, running snapshots of our software can be taken to customer sites, and software development doesn't necessarily stop simply because one of our staff isn't in the office.

Year 2: Desktop

$4,000 per person.

In practice, this number can be quite a bit lower due to the reuse of certain elements of the system (e.g., monitor) and the variability in equipment costs. This proves to be the hardest thing to predict because of the wide range of purchases CIS has made in the past, ranging from multiple CPU Sparc workstations to single CPU Celeron based PCs. So, I'm really naming $4,000 based on the current prices for developer quality desktop systems; in practise, I imagine that on even numbered cycles this number will be a bit less due to the reuse of the previous system's equipment, such as the monitor.

Year 3: No Planned Expenditures

There are no costs forcasted in the third year of every cycle. This is intentional, providing an opportunity for us to spread out the costs of the previous two years over a three year period.

Summary

$7,500 per staff developer every three years, or $2,500 per staff per year.

Infrastructure

Yearly: Backup Tapes

$3,000 per year.

Every year, CIS spends approximately $12,000 on backup media and other associated costs. By mutual agreement, the Center pays for 25% of this, with the remaining 75% picked up by the DIRS, LIAS, and MCSL research groups. These purchases are staggered approximately by quarters; LIAS' portion of this rotating fund is due in the Spring of each year.

File Services

RAID Drives

LIAS maintains an 8 drive RAID (at present, approximately 0.5TB in size); this RAID provides fault tolerant data storage for both LIAS projects as well as other groups working with LIAS. Every two or three years, we upgrade to higher density drives. Depending on the situation, we sometimes purchase used drives from other research groups (approx $4,000) or purchase new drives (approx $9,600) to upgrade the RAID.

Starting with the 2004 summer, though, we expect this price drop dramatically; we can expect to expand this RAID in 250 gigabyte increments for only $600.

RAID Hardware

Additionally, the hardware that contains these drives does need to be replaced and upgraded from time to time. Historically, we get about 5 years out of a particular RAID configuration before it simply becomes too old or slow to support modern drives. A new RAID typically costs between $6,000 and $10,000.

Server

Along with RAID hardware, there also exists a server on which filesystems for multiple research groups are hosted; put another way, this is the system to which the research RAID are connected. Typically, this is provided by the Center and shared with other research groups; sometimes, we are asked to pay for some portion of a new server (typically 25-33% of the total cost).

Summer 2004 Specifics

RAID

A new RAID supporting astrophysical research is being obtained by the new director of the Center; due to some fortunate last minute cost reductions, a much larger RAID than was originally planned is being purchased. In turn, LIAS can migrate to this new RAID at no cost. Future growth on this RAID is anticipated at $600/250GB.

Therefore, despite the planned expenditures, there is no need for LIAS to purchase any new RAID space at this time. We are getting our periodic increase in space "for free" this time.

Server

A new Sun server is being purchased by the Center to support the hosting of the new RAID. Again, no cost to LIAS is anticipated. This is a "one time" event, though, not likely to repeat in the future.