System information
A Principled Technologies test report 40
Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs.
legacy hardware solution
Dell PowerEdge VRTX
platform
Unit
Cost per unit
Quantity
description
Quantity
Total cost
Microsoft SQL Server 2012
Standard (Software Assurance)
One license per
SQL VM
$224.50
One SQL Server VM
1
$224.50
Microsoft Exchange Server
2013 (Software Assurance)
One server
$177.00
One Exchange VM
1
$177.00
VMware vSphere 5 Standard
Basic support
One per processor
per year
$273.00
Number processors
4
$1,092.00
Energy cost for power and
cooling
Platform
$942.98
One VRTX
1
$942.98
Hardware management
Cost per hour
$50.00
Number hours
12
$600.00
VMware management
Cost per hour
$50.00
Number hours
24
$1,200.00
Total annual costs
$5,977.98
Average cost per month
$498.17
Figure 16: Cost analysis for the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution.
Acquisition costs
Acquisition costs include purchase costs for the Dell PowerEdge VRTX hardware that we tested, license costs for
the Microsoft Windows Server 2012, Microsoft SQL Server 2012, and VMware vSphere 5 software versions that we
tested with, and IT staff costs to setup the system.
Hardware costs
See Appendix A for system information for the Dell PowerEdge VRTX hardware we tested. Dell supplied the
hardware price.
Software costs
We include license costs for the following software:
Windows Server 2012 Standard Edition licenses for the four processors on the two servers
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Standard license for one VM
Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Standard Edition license for one VM
VMware vSphere 5 Standard licenses for the four processors on the two servers
We used the Microsoft License Advisor
2
and selected Corporate Open No Level pricing for Microsoft software. We used
prices on the VMware site for VMware vSphere Standard licensed per processor.
3
Setup costs
We estimated 16 hours of staff time to unbox and setup the Dell PowerEdge VRTX hardware and to install the
software on it. We do not include time to update the software to the latest edition or to migrate files and databases to
it. We omit those non-platform-specific tasks from this analysis.
2
mla.microsoft.com/default.aspx
3
www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vsphere/pricing.html