This topic describes how to use the total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis feature of Cloud Migration Hub (CMH) to analyze the costs of migrating services from third-party cloud service providers or data centers to Alibaba Cloud for your enterprise. Third-party cloud service providers include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Huawei Cloud, Tencent Cloud, and Azure. The analysis results can help you make decisions on cloud migration.
Video tutorial
TCO analysis of third-party cloud service providers
Create a TCO analysis task
1. Log on to the CMH console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Assessment capacity > TCO Analyse. On the TCO Analyse page, click a tab based on your cloud migration scenario. Then, click Create TCO Analysis Task. In the Create TCO Analysis Task panel, configure the parameters.
2. Select a survey method.
a. AK/SK: You can assign an account that has the read-only permissions on third-party cloud resources to CMH. Then, CMH automatically analyzes bills and maps third-party cloud services to Alibaba Cloud services. This way, you can obtain the costs of using Alibaba Cloud services and a comparison between the costs of using Alibaba Cloud services and the costs of using third-party cloud services.
If you want to analyze the costs of migrating services from AWS, Huawei Cloud, or Tencent Cloud to Alibaba Cloud and select AK/SK as the survey method, configure the parameters such as AccessKey and SecretKey.
1. AWS: Before you select AK/SK as the survey method, make sure that AWS Cost Explorer is enabled and the account that you assign to CMH has the following permissions:
arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AWSBillingReadOnlyAccess
arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/Billing
arn:aws:iam::aws:rds/DescribeDbInstancesYou are charged for calling the GetCostAndUsage operation by using AWS SDKs to access your AWS bills. In addition, the account that you assign to CMH must have the read-only permissions on Amazon RDS to access Amazon RDS specifications, which help CMH recommend suitable ApsaraDB RDS specifications on Alibaba Cloud.
2. Tencent Cloud: Before you select AK/SK as the survey method, you can log on to the Tencent Cloud console and use Cloud Access Management (CAM) to configure policies for the account that you assign to CMH.
3. Huawei Cloud: Before you select AK/SK as the survey method, you can log on to the Huawei Cloud console and use Identity and Access Management (IAM) to configure policies for the account that you assign to CMH.
4. Azure: Before you select AK/SK as the survey method, you can log on to the Azure console and use the identity and access management solution to configure access permissions on corresponding subscriptions or resource groups for the account that you assign to CMH.
CMH does not record or store your sensitive information such as the AccessKey pair. The key information that you enter is used only for the current task.
If you want to analyze the costs of migrating services from Azure to Alibaba Cloud and select AK/SK as the survey method, configure the parameters such as TenantId, SubscriptionId, ClientId, and SecretKey. The following figure shows an example.
b. Form Upload: You can upload the information about third-party cloud resources for analysis by filling in and uploading an Excel template. This survey method is supported only for AWS.
If you select Form Upload as the survey method, click Download Template to download the template. After you fill in the template, click Select file to upload the template.
c. Bill Upload: You can upload a bill that you download from AWS for analysis. This survey method is supported only for AWS.
If you select Bill Upload as the survey method, click Select file to upload a bill that you download from AWS. Bills in the PDF and CSV formats are supported. You can click Download Template to download sample bills.
To download bills from AWS, perform the following steps:
Step 1: Log on to the AWS console. On the homepage of the AWS console, click Billing and Cost Management.
Step 2: On the Billing and Cost Management page, click View bill.
Step 3: In the upper-right corner of the Bills page, select the billing cycle and click Download all to CSV to download a bill in the CSV format or click Print to export a bill in the PDF format.
3. Submit a TCO analysis task.
If you want to analyze the costs of migrating services from AWS, Huawei Cloud, or Tencent Cloud to Alibaba Cloud, configure the parameters and click Yes to initiate a TCO analysis task. The following figure shows an example.
If you want to analyze the costs of migrating services from Azure to Alibaba Cloud, configure the parameters and click Yes to initiate a TCO analysis task. The following figure shows an example.
After the task is submitted, you can view the submitted task in the Running state on the TCO Analyse page. After the task is complete, you can perform subsequent detailed analysis.
Download the bill analysis results
CMH analyzes your service bills within the specified time period based on billable items to obtain the specifications, average monthly usage, and average monthly resource consumption for each service. After the analysis is complete, you can download the analysis results as an Excel file to your on-premises device for further analysis.
View the service mapping list
Based on the service specifications and usage, CMH maps the purchased third-party cloud services to Alibaba Cloud services. CMH provides the most cost-effective configurations that can cover your current service usage without compromising the service specifications. You can click View Configurations to view the service mapping list. In the list, you can add, modify, or remove mapping relationships and adjust the resource mapping logic that is predefined by the TCO analysis feature. This allows you to determine Alibaba Cloud service specifications that can meet your business requirements. You can also click Export mapping details to download the service mapping list in the PDF or EXCEL format.
Compare services
In terms of cost estimation, CMH provides a comparison between your average monthly costs of using third-party cloud services and the estimated average monthly costs of using Alibaba Cloud services during a specific period. In addition, you can click Export results to download the comparison results as a PDF file. You can also contact your Alibaba Cloud sales manager who can help adjust the price calculation ratio of services in each service category. This further optimizes your costs of using Alibaba Cloud services.
Services between which mapping relationships can be established
Third-party cloud service | Alibaba Cloud service |
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud | Elastic Compute Service |
Amazon Elastic IP Address | Elastic IP Address |
Amazon NAT Gateway | NAT Gateway |
Amazon Elastic Load Balancing | Server Load Balancer |
Amazon Relational Database Service | ApsaraDB RDS |
Amazon Simple Storage Service | Object Storage Service |
Amazon Elastic File System | Block Storage |
Amazon EC2 Container Registry | Container Registry |
Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes | Container Service for Kubernetes |
Huawei Elastic Cloud Server | Elastic Compute Service |
Huawei Relational Database Service | ApsaraDB RDS |
Tencent Cloud Virtual Machine | Elastic Compute Service |
Azure Virtual Machines | Elastic Compute Service |
TCO analysis of data centers
Create a TCO analysis task
Log on to the CMH console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Assessment capacity > TCO Analyse. On the TCO Analyse page, click the IDC cloud migration cost assessment tab. On the IDC cloud migration cost assessment tab, click Research Form Filling. On the Research Form Filling page, configure the parameters.
Server
1. In the Server section, enter the information about servers. Select Application Server or Database Server from the Type drop-down list. Configure other parameters in the Server section, such as the type and quantity of each resource, and click the Refresh icon. The system generates a server unit price based on your configurations. The default unit price is the market reference price.
2. To add a server, click Add Server and configure the parameters in the blank server template.
Switch network card
Click Automatic calculation based on server. The system automatically calculates the number of network interface controllers (NICs) on a vSwitch based on the server specifications that you configured. To manually modify the shared price for each NIC, enter a value in the Single network card sharing price field.
Storage
1. Select Object Storage or File Storage from the Specifications drop-down list. Configure other parameters in the Storage section and click the Refresh icon. The system calculates the storage price based on your configurations. You can also manually modify the storage price based on your business requirements.
2. To add a storage type, click Add Storage and configure the parameters in the blank storage template.
Data Center
Select the region in which your data center is deployed. The default rack rental fee varies based on the region. You can also manually modify the rack rental fee based on your business requirements. To add racks, click the plus icon.
Bandwidth
Adjust the slider or manually enter a value to specify the bandwidth. The system calculates the monthly bandwidth unit price based on the default price. You can also manually modify the bandwidth unit price based on your business requirements.
IT manpower cost
IT costs include office costs and labor costs other than remunerations, such as social security costs. The default value in each Personnel costs field indicates the market reference price. You can manually modify the values based on your business requirements.
Other cost factors
Specify other costs based on your business requirements. You can select Coefficient calculation as the calculation method and specify a percentage for each item. The annual costs are roughly estimated based on the total price and coefficients.
You can also select Cost Entry as the calculation method and directly enter a value for each item.
Other costs:
Server software costs: the costs of various commercial software installed on the servers, such as operating systems, database management systems, load balancing systems, resource management platforms, and O&M change platforms.
Cost of storage software: the costs of commercial storage software used for device management and remote maintenance. This kind of software provides core features such as data redundancy protection, data reconstruction and restoration, hierarchical storage, data encryption, load balancing, snapshot replication, and version management.
Performance Reservation: the costs of performance reservation in your data center. You can estimate the value based on your business requirements. This reduces the risk of insufficient capacity that may arise when workloads surge in a short period of time.
Disaster recovery cost: the costs of disaster recovery reservation in your data center in case of hardware damages. This reduces stability risks that arise when physical devices fail.
Cost of capital: the capital costs that are generated when you purchase resources in advance to deploy your data center.
Depreciation life
Specify the depreciation life of your devices. Valid values: 3, 4, and 5. Unit: year.
After you complete the preceding configurations, click View Cost Report and wait until the report is generated.
View the cost report
After the report is generated, you are automatically navigated to the report details page on which you can view the cost analysis results. To modify parameters, click Adjustment needs in the upper-right corner of the report details page to return to the Research Form Filling page. To export the report as a PDF file, click Download Cost Report.
Compare the costs of using the data center and the costs of using Alibaba Cloud services for each year within the depreciation life and view the detailed costs.
Compare cost lists
In the lower part of the report details page, you can view the detailed cost comparisons of this TCO analysis. You can compare the costs of major service categories such as Calculation force and Network in a structured manner.
You can click the drop-down arrow to the right of each category or click Expand All in the upper-right corner of the Cost List Comparison section to view the detailed specifications and prices.
View historical reports
All the generated analysis reports are displayed on the IDC cloud migration cost assessment tab. You can configure different research forms based on your business requirements and compare the analysis results. To view the comparison details of a report, find the report on the IDC cloud migration cost assessment tab and click View in the Actions to go to the report details page.