We are engaged to propose dataminer for a project to our customer. There are multiple teams where they have different opinions also questioning that dataminer is little costly. Sometimes end customer starts comparing Dataminer with some specific companies who provides monitoring tools just for limited segment and tend to say that we can monitor and manage every single element of the ecosystem similar to what dataminer does. How does dataminer stands special? Can you help us with some intakes to share the right message to my customer here?
Thanks Daud, much appreciated.
I've added below a few more points that might be useful when considering TCO. Not all are completely documented, but I thought it might be of help also.
Cost of a Perpetual Use License
What is the price of all Perpetual Use License that you need to purchase. This is a one-time licenses fee that entitles you to use the licensed software for as long as you like without any additional charges. Note that this is typically limited to the then current version of the software, and if you want to have bug fixes, updates and upgrades then those typically need to be purchased separately either via a Support Contract or via Upgrades Licenses, or a combination of both.
Cost of a Cloud Service Subscription
What is the price that you pay for the Cloud Service. Typically this is a monthly or yearly fee that you need to pay, that allows you to use the software. Typically this then also includes, in addition to the right to use the service, all the evolutions of that software (bug fixes, updates and upgrades), (limited) technical support and the underlying hosting infrastructure (OS / compute / utility / redundancy / data protection). Although one needs to be cautious, as it is not uncommon that extra fees apply for new feature sets that are released, or certain constraints may apply that add to the cost unexpectedly (e.g. traffic volume, typically out of the cloud). And noteworthy is the fact that kind of mechanisms for Cloud Services are typically very convoluted and hard if not impossible to predict (i.e. translating the billing mechanisms and units of dimension to what it will be for your operation is extremely difficult if not impossible without effectively just doing it).
Cost of Updates
Updates typically consist of minor evolutions of existing software features and bug fixes. These updates might be charged separately, or alternatively be part of an overall Maintenance Service bundle. For Cloud Services, Updates are typically part of the overall Cloud Service Subscription.
Cost of Upgrades
Upgrades typically consist of major evolutions of existing software features and new functionality. These upgrades might be charged separately, or alternatively be part of an overall Maintenance Service bundle. For Cloud Services, Updates are typically part of the overall Cloud Service Subscription, although quite often different subscription tiers apply and access to all upgrades at no additional cost is not necessarily guaranteed.
Cost of Scaling
Cost of Scaling is an important consideration. First is to identify the different types of scaling that may apply, and to what extend they have an impact on different other cost categories. This can be quite diverse, and some areas are more likely to affect your cost basis then others depending on the anticipated. Different types of scaling could include more users, more managed elements, more types of elements, more services, more historical storage, different domains of application, etc. Impact could be on one or more cost categories, including for example additional licenses, increased subscription fees, additional compute infrastructure, increased storage, etc.
Cost of Technical Support Service
For professional mission critical deployments, you are likely going to require professional support services to assist you where needed with both the administration, maintenance and continuous configuration evolutions of the platform. Note that various types of technical support services are available, ranging from more community-style / online support all the way to highly individualized support by a subject matter expert, dedicated to your case. Technical Support Services are typically also subject to different levels of SLAs, which are worth considering in this context.
Cost of 24/7 Technical Support Service
Optionally, depending on the nature of the application and associated business, you may opt to extend your Technical Support Service for continuous around the clock availability.
Cost of Optional Future Components
Often software solutions come with various options. What is the likelihood of needing some of those options to achieve both your short and long term goals. In some license schemes, it is not that easy always to understand what options could be potentially needed at some point to be able to accomplish specific goal. Sometimes options are complete logical modules in the overall suite (e.g. Dashboards & Reporting), which is more easy to anticipate (macro options). But the most tricky options are the ones that are effectively available as part of the licensing that you have, but that come with certain feature constraints (i.e. you can use the option, but only to a certain extend and it is more difficult to understand how quickly you may come into a position where you absolutely require the capabilities that are optional) (micro options). The latter is very typical for Cloud Services Subscriptions, where you subscribe to a specific tier, and where the differentiation between the tiers consists of many scattered small features. Cloud Services Subscriptions are notorious for being very accessible (e.g. free entry level tier) and quickly bumping you up to higher cost tiers once you are committed to it (e.g. only professional security in higher tiers).
Cost of third-party mandatory components
Sometimes certain software has exclusive dependencies on other third-party software products (i.e. it does not function or it is not full featured without those) that might be subject to license fees, and which are not included in the license fees that you are paying for (e.g. OS, database, etc.).
Cost of underlying hosting infrastructure
For an on-premises installation, irrespective of the type of license scheme, there is always a cost associated for the underlying hosting infrastructure which consists of compute hardware, data storage, utility, networking infrastructure, security, real estate, etc. For cloud services this is typically, but not necessarily always, included in the overall service charge.
Cost of admin maintenance
Cost of executing administrative tasks and housekeeping such as software upgrades & updates, platform migrations to new compute hardware over time, back-up of the platform, ensuring security of the installation, adding new users (external and/or internal), maintaining security profiles, etc. Note that a lot of these can be largely impacted by the availability of features such as SSO / LDAP integrations, automated / build-in backups, and much more.
Cost of installation / deployment
Any solution, on-premises but also cloud services, come with a cost for the installation / deployment of the solution. This can largely vary from one solution to another, depending on the complexity of the installation and deployment process.
Cost of initial set-up & configuration
Cost of architecture
Cost of configuration evolutions
One of the major hidden costs is the actual use of the platform, and its ability to evolve along with the needs and changes, both from a business and operational perspective. And this cost is only getting higher as the industry evolves more and more towards a platform economy that demands agility, and the ability to respond fast to changes that can come very unexpected. Pretty much any capability could be considered a simple check box (e.g. fault management - check, ability to integrate third party data sources - check) that can be easily be checked for multiple software platforms. But if you then look more closely on how that is done, how easily it can be changed and tailored to your specific needs (which might be even unknown to you at that stage), the different software platforms could be very different, and range from being extremely rigid and static to being very open and highly adaptable. The cost associated with a rigid solution can be exorbitant. In fact, whereas a single open and highly adaptable software solution might serve you easily for decades, static solutions can have a very short life cycle, resulting in cascaded expenditures for new solutions (i.e. new licenses, cost of deployment, installation, configuration, training, etc.).
Cost of training for system administrators
Cost of training for system developers
Cost of training for end users
Cost of down-time
Depending on the exact area of deployment and the role of the platform, down-time of that platform comes with a cost, and therefore needs to be minimized. The degree to which you can minimize down-time depends on many things, including specific qualities and characteristics of the platform. While down-time might be caused due to malfunctions or planned upgrades and updates of the platform, increasingly more attention is required towards evolutions of the platform, as those become a continuous aspect of it. Therefore it is important that key evolutionary activities can easily be done at run-time, without impacting the operation (e.g. adding & evolving API integrations, developing and changing workflow logic, etc.).
Cost of integration
Cost of loss of opportunity
Lack of functionality
Cost of loss of efficiency
One of the important hidden costs
Cost of time to market
Cost of price evolutions
Cost of lack of product continuity
What is the installed base of the product? How long has that installed base been around? What is the history and track record of the company evolving the product with the new technology trends and needs as part of their maintenance programs, or have they introduced such essential evolutions as options that come on top? Product continuity can have a tremendous impact on TCO.
Cost of lack of provider continuity
Is the product offered part of the core business of the provider of that software? How much of their business does it represent and how committed is this provider to this product? Is the company an established value or a start-up, what kind of funding drives the company, what is their financial health and track record?
Cost of lack of security
Dear Daud, thanks for your question.
People having different opinions is definitely not something new to us and we're happy to assist where we can. Although it's pretty difficult to answer in general without knowing those opinions and/or so-called competing products, however here some ideas from the top of my head that could assist you:
Tackling costs, again I would welcome looking to the details as we can on short notice provide you a budgetary quotation. But in general, I would advise you calculating a 5Y TCO. Meaning a total cost of ownership tackling your initial investment costs, the savings you make by consolidation tools/support/resources, the support costs, the update costs, the upgrade costs, the costs to add new products and their impact on your operational ecosystem, the cost of changes on the platform due to new requirements/market situations, the cost of education, the cost when new colleagues join to onboard them, the cost of searching the right answers, the cost of not having an open ecosystem, the cost of not being able to benefit from constant improvements further enhancing value to you, etc. Experience learns that the world can look pretty different by doing a full 5Y TCO cost exercise. People typically underestimate the cost of software heavily, maybe not in its initial investment but in its total cost over a longer period - when doing this exercise suddenly people realize that DataMiner is by far not too expensive and delivers a lot of value truly helping the organization.
Other facts you can take with you:
- Number one solution: DataMiner is the leading & fastest growing network management & OSS solution for the ICT Media & Broadband market. In other words, you're joining an experienced and large network of professionals (see also this DOJO community where thousands of people consult and add content on daily basis) adding value to you day over day. Not only about DataMiner but in the wider technology ecosystem we're living in today and tomorrow (knowledge is power) - how to make and benefit from the right decisions proven by many companies before. How to make DataMiner the most future-proof and cost-efficient open software platform.
- True vendor agnostic: DataMiner is a vendor-agnostic platform, integrating with any system from any vendor. In the media business, we've today +7000 connectors available off-the-shelf from +500 manufacturers, this alone is by far the largest catalog in our market. Hence from a risk management (and cost) point of view, you have the guarantee that your products can be integrated and likely already have been integrated. Here you not only benefit from Skyline experience but also from market experience embedded into those products already.
- Any protocol: Our connectors can communicate any type of protocol, whether it's standard off-the-shelf or vendor-specific you have the guarantee we can communicate in the requested language. And this tackles standard trap, polling type of connections, or the more modern telemetry/streaming type of interfaces in the market. If a software solution you're looking at belongs to a certain technology manufacturer you know it's there with one single main business purpose - supporting the technology of the vendor as a first goal (and because they need claim to be open to third parties but that's more a must than a priority). Please take with you the following thinking. How can a software monitoring solution that is developing technology from brand X provide you with a guarantee it can integrate the technology from its competitor brand Y. Correct, it cannot and in the end, this party will lock you into their environment. That's the business model they operate, with DataMiner you know unconditionally it can be integrated. You 100% choose the technology today and tomorrow independent of the manufacturer of choice and you know tomorrow that's going to be 100% possible.
- Open intuitive user-friendly UI: With DataMiner you can design the UEX exactly to your needs using an open intuitive user-friendly UI that is packed with unique features and capabilities. At run-time, you can update your platform.
- Dev-Ops style: DataMiner is Dev-Ops open, in other words changing, adding products, logic, UIs, users, etc. it's all possible at run-time. DataMiner is an enabling platform, where you can model/configure everything on the solid foundation we've. Platforms today change constantly, having the capabilities of handling these changes yourselves while avoiding engineering/consultancy costs can be pretty different in your total TCO.
- Security and CI/CD: Security is key, looks at what's happening around us. Software solutions, networks, companies are being hacked - how are you protecting yourselves from it? A firewall only is not doing the job, at Skyline we take this seriously, and security plays a pivotal role in our complete software development & quality testing and deployment services. CI/CD workflows in Skyline are fully automating internal processes from design to deployment - making software reliable, secure, and future-proof. Software in our industry needs to be able to receive constant improvements through updates/upgrades without interfering with the operational ecosystem or allowing downtime in parallel there is no room for dropping on security.
- Functionality: In general monitoring platforms today & tomorrow are not only about being able to see if something went wrong only, today it's all about having a solid data acquisition & control plane that is not only able to pinpoint immediately what services are impacted, but allow you based on the wealth of data to make instant use of it, e.g. to automate the resolution of the fault, to predict if and when are things going wrong in your ecosystem in the near future, to manage the onboarding of systems, to orchestrate business processes, to manage virtual and physical resources and their capacity, to build solutions tackling specific use-cases... Today Automation is key to mitigate recurring costs and avoiding disasters. In addition, artificial intelligence is becoming crucial in further reducing & avoiding failures going to happen, which means eventually further drive down costs for your organization and constantly looking to increase the value.
- ...
There are many more points I can add, therefore don't hesitate to get in touch with me to learn more about your requirements and how we can assist you to show how DataMiner is your only and best choice.
Glenn
glenn.dhaene@skyline.be
This illustrates some of the points I raised in the earlier response, I thought it might help.
Further to Glenn his points. TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is a really important one. License cost is only a fraction of the entire picture for this kind of solutions. You can compare it to buying a slightly cheaper car, and ignoring the fact that whatever you save on the initial purchase will evaporate within 6 months due to a far higher fuel consumption of the cheaper car. Unfortunately, TCO is far more complex as compared to fuel consumption.
For this type of solutions, fact of the matter is that within the overall TCO, the initial purchase & deployment cost typically represents only a small portion of the TCO. In general, TCO also includes components such as the sunk and overhead cost, the operations & maintenance cost, the cost of evolving the solution, the expected life cycle of the solution, and much more. And therefore, not surprisingly, the simplified and short-sighted approach of comparing monitoring & orchestration solutions solely based on the initial cost very commonly results in very poor business decisions from a TCO perspective.
Note that this is also about software, where possibilities are endless, and it is extremely hard, if not impossible to capture the real value of a piece of software simply on the basis of some sort of compliancy with requirements. Or in other words, while many software applications might check all the exact same requirement boxes, the actual value in practice between those different software applications can easily range from very poor and close to not usable, all the way to a great perfect match for what you need. And this due to nobody's fault or shortcoming, it is simply impossible to capture the real value of software on the basis of requirements.
The key problem here is the following: a small detail that is missing from a certain functionality in the software can easily reduce the value of it in your specific operation to zero, i.e. you thought it was going to be exactly what you needed and then in reality it turns out to be useless. And what is the cost of NOT having certain functionality? All we can say is that it can be considerable, very considerable. But it is not tangible and very visible. It's a bit like saying, what is the cost of not having a fire insurance? If you consider what I'm saying here, then you will understand that for example the relationship with the software vendor can already have a big impact on your TCO. Are you dealing with a vendor with whom you can have a long-lasting strong relationship, and where you can count on that vendor listening to your specific needs? Or are you dealing with a piece of software that you will have to take and accept as it is, and will have no leverage on how it will evolve in the future? The difference between those two can have a considerable impact on your TCO.
There's a lot to be said about this, and it is a very complex topic. But by far the number one reason why the TCO for DataMiner is typically considerably below any other product, is it versatility and flexibility. Enabling users to leverage it as a truly unified platform across their entire operation, and all possible aspects of it. Many operators invested in DataMiner over 10-15 years ago, and still up to today manage everything they have with that platform, everything in their operation has evolved and has been replaced multiple times, except the management platform. And that has an enormous positive impact on TCO.
Unified operation also increases security considerably (smaller attack surface, more professional, etc.), lowers the training expenses, lowers the contracting cost, the support cost, the ever more important north bound integration cost (ticketing, inventory, planned maintenance, portals, etc.), the upgrade and evolution cost, and so much more.
Again this is a very broad topic. But fact of the matter is, DataMiner offers a superior and very competitive TCO, and for this kind of solutions, the initial purchase cost is only a fraction of the TCO equation.
Next to the costs aspects Ben and Glenn mentioned, DataMiner also has far more capabilities than monitoring. In fact, I would say that for DataMiner, monitoring is only the baseline. DataMiner is truly a digital twin of the user's ecosystem.
On top of the monitoring, you can extend with attractive custom visual representations. You can group monitored devices and services into services in a way that is relevant for the user. These services can be monitored with an SLA. These services can be managed dynamically. There are extensive reporting capabilities. Complex IP-based signal chains can be visualized in a comprehensive way, ...
If you want all these features, you'll likely have to source several products from multiple vendors, each at its own cost. On top of that, there will be additional costs of integrating all these products into a single system. Even then, having the information spread over several services will cause confusion for operators on where to find which information. Connecting to several services searching for the right information instead of connecting a single source of truth as provided by DataMiner. This leads to an additional cost and loss of time in daily operations.
Hi Daud,
Thank you for bringing this question to our community. I am sure you will read the other response posted earlier, those are very valuable points.
The essence is that we need to explain to our customers that some competitors are promising that they can do same like DataMiner, and doing that in reality is a big difference, especially for software platform like “DataMiner”
- In general, we know there are some companies great in mimicking and mirroring our pitches and value proposition, but reality is that their solution is very far from what DataMiner effectively offers. Some of those companies have just few customer reference and that too for just for the specific network segment, not like DataMiner provides Guaranteed integration end to end across any technology or domain, across any vendor or protocol.
- We have successful customer references across 125+ countries for more than 1000s of happy customers who are extending DataMiner year on year.
- We have around 7000 different integrations from products and systems of close to 700 OEMs.
- The company behind DataMiner – “Skyline Communications” (more than 35 years old) is fully independent & focused towards innovating the DataMiner platform for more than 20 years now. The DataMiner platform has been recognized & awarded several times in the industry as can be seen on https://skyline.be/skyline/awards
- Skyline communications have 350+ DataMiner heroes (and growing year on year); the whole Skyline crew are focused towards ONE PLATFORM “DataMiner” with common mission & vision. You will rarely find any company in the industry who are having with 350+ people working for monitoring and orchestration software.
- DataMiner is the investment not only for today but also for tomorrow. It’s not like that the customer can monitor 10-15 devices today using some cheap tools, and its done, later, they keeps piling up more and more smaller systems year on year, the drawback of same is explained in Ben’s post with a slide about TCO (total cost of ownership). Whatever the investment customer makes on specific connector, he can extend the same connector for other similar devices across today or tomorrow.
- The connectors are not limiting to control or juts monitoring KPIs, or to specific number of ports. Moreover, these are standard open XML files, the end users of DataMiner can also develop their own connectors using Skyline’s DIS platform (it’s a bold step our company has taken to allow our customer to make their own connectors – one user seat is free for each DataMiner customer).
In any case, if your customer asks those other companies to set up a POC, high chances that they won’t able to show it completely, whereas DataMiner demo can accessed live here https://skyline.be/learn/demo
Believe me, some of those companies who commit and over promise that they will do all what DataMiner does, the will need to develop everything from scratch, and later they realize the cost of all those factors which Ben mentioned here in this response thread.
They sell cheap to try to get into the market. The cost of sustainable long-term software development is high, very high, a lot higher than what most of the people think, it is the biggest mistake that start-ups make, it is the number one reason why again and again companies disappear. Later they realize that, some of those companies cannot fund the development, they disappear again and the customer is stuck with a legacy system. We have several DataMiner users that went through this pain and before they started happily with DataMiner.
And if you want to talk to us, check here our contact information: Sales team - DataMiner Dojo
Thank you very much team for response. Explained very well and it will be very helpful to explain the customer. Also after seeing all the offering from dataminer it will be unfair to compare any other monitoring tool to dataminer.
Thanks.