Business Case
The Company has a number of business-critical services that must operate continuously. Two services, e-commerce and customer management, continuously support a number of users. Collected data (FIGURE 6-2) shows the average number of users accessing these systems on a per-hour basis over several months. At any given time, more than 190 users are active on the two systems. A trend analysis shows that the number of users is increasing at approximately a 20 percent compound annual rate.
Figure 6-2. Active Users
These services generate approximately $200 million a year, with an estimated 22 percent compound annual growth rate. The current, unclustered systems have a measured, average annual outage rate of 37 hours a year.
Capacity planning analysis shows that the current systems are likely to reach saturation during peak usage within the next year. The developers are also increasing the complexity of the applications on the e-commerce site. The effect of the new applications on system performance is not yet known, so a system that can easily expand its performance capacity is recommended.
The financial analysis assumes a five-year life cycle. The Company uses a three-year capital depreciation schedule. The recurring and nonrecurring costs were estimates.
The results of the analysis show that a profit can be made if the availability for the e-commerce and customer management system is improved from the current measured 37 hours per year to less than 2 hours. The budget permits a mid-range, clustered system to replace the current single-server system.