* Quantify in dollar amount what you spend supporting Active Directory
NetPro’s annual Directory Experts Conference (DEC) was held in Vancouver last March. At this year’s event, as in years past, 101 attendees were surveyed about various things having to do with their Windows and Active Directory installations. We looked at some of the results in the last issue, but today, there’s one question I want to focus on.
Often, vendors will market to you based on the supposed ability of their product to reduce your support costs and improve your organization’s bottom line. Sometimes, they’ll even promise substantial savings (“slash costs by 50%!”) or lay out detailed spreadsheets of exactly where the savings will come from and how big they will be (“save $5000 per user!”). But when NetPro asked this year’s conference attendees to quantify their Active Directory support costs on a “per user/ per year” basis, the answers were surprising. Even more surprising was that more than 90% of the people who turned in the survey simply skipped the question.
Of those who did answer, the results ranged from $6 per user per year to $1,500 – implying that those who didn’t answer had even a lesser grasp (if possible) on their fiscal obligations. About a third of those who ventured an answer (roughly 3% of all those who turned in the survey) claimed the per user, per year cost was approximately $400.
Think about how you would have answered that question. No fair peeking at budgets or trouble tickets first – just estimate off the top of your head. Then gather some real data from the sources you have at hand and see how close you actually came. If you feel comfortable sharing the information, e-mail it to me and I’ll aggregate the data (and keep it anonymous). Remember, we’re looking for your per user/per year costs of supporting Active Directory. The numbers could be interesting – any very useful.
