Login Enterprise + Cloud Cost Calculators Better Together!

March 22, 2023

One of the most convenient tools for the new world of cloud computing for end-user computing is the ability to complete financial modeling with simplified cost calculators, virtual applications, and desktop cloud modeling tools.

Cost calculators, virtual applications, and desktop cloud modeling tools help users hypothesize their computing resources and manage costs.

Making big decisions based on an assumption?

A cost calculator estimates the costs of running applications on different cloud computing platforms, allowing users to input the type and amount of resources they need, such as CPU, RAM, and storage, and then calculates the estimated costs of running those resources on different cloud platforms.

Cost calculators are helpful because they enable users to compare the costs of other cloud providers and make informed decisions about where to run their applications. Here are some examples of some of the options out there:

• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-ca/pricing/calculator/
• https://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/pricing/
• https://www.citrix.com/products/citrix-daas/resources/azure-virtual-desktop-calculator.html#/
• https://cloud.google.com/products/calculator
• https://nmw.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/12604714425239-Nerdio-Advisor-AVD-Modeler
• https://nmmce.getnerdio.com/

While these are great starting points, there is a caveat. You will notice that many of these sizing guides, calculators, and modeling tools have disclaimers that emphasize that the calculation is simply an approximation and not necessarily reliable. Here is an example of a disclaimer you may see,

Disclaimer: The AVD Modeler only generates estimates. Actual costs may vary depending on usage, price changes, and other factors.

You may be wondering why there are caveats and disclaimers. There are several reasons why cost calculators, sizing guides, and modeling tools are simply an approximation and not entirely reliable.  Here are a few:

• User personas, applications, software stack, security tools, agents, and configurations can have a massive impact and cause huge variances in costs, capacity, and user experience that are not factored into the calculation.
• Variability of cloud instance types, VCPU to CPU ratios, noisy neighbors, storage performance, ratios of shared virtual resource to physical.
• Assumptions and limitations of the tools: Cost calculators, sizing guides, and modeling tools are based on a range of assumptions and constraints, which can impact the accuracy of the results. For example, these tools may not consider specific workloads or configurations that could affect the costs or resource requirements.

Given these factors, users need to use cost calculators, sizing guides, and modeling tools as a starting point for their decision-making process, but also consider other factors, as most calculators overlook the most important outcomes for your business, like user experience and optimal OpEx costs.

Since these tools are so general, they do not incorporate your environment’s nuances, leading to inaccurate answers and outcomes for your specific situation. Leaving blind spots to questions like, how many peak concurrent users will you have in your new cloud workspace?

The Challenges and Outcomes of Migrating Without Full Visibility

Several challenges and potential outcomes can come from making final decisions based solely on the results of cost calculators, sizing guides, and modeling tools.

Significant issues can arise when you underestimate resource requirements, like degradation to user experience while scaling. While on the other hand, if you overestimate resource requirements, you miss the opportunity to identify an optimal instance type for your users and will likely end up going over your OpEx budget. Without complete visibility into migration’s performance and cost implication, your cost could be significantly higher or performance much lower once migrations begin, known as Scale Shock.

You may also run the risk of compromising being a trusted partner for MSPs, VARs, EUC teams, and leaders if your service fails to deliver on user experience and OpEx-run guesstimates are wrong.

Login Enterprise + Cloud Cost Calculators Better Together!

Login Enterprise enables administrators can ask better questions and get more accurate, insightful answers. For example, teams can answer detailed questions like,

How many peak concurrent users can I host on my optimal cloud instance concurrently with my software stack, security tools, and configuration while providing a good user experience at scale for an optimal cost?

Combining Login Enterprise with cloud cost calculators allows you to create a predictable road map for your customer or your organization to ensure you have the optimal costs, capacity, and user experience while users are working at scale.

Ask better questions, and create better outcomes:

• An accurate picture of your Day 2 operational user-to-host ratios at scale. Reduce risk to user experience impact and create exact auto-scaling conditions to reduce costs.
• Reduce OpEx spend by identifying the right instance type for your workloads.
• Reduce the risk of Scale Shock over the next 12-36 months.
• MSPs, VARs, EUC teams, and leaders become trusted partners because of their ability to deliver on user experience and OpEx-run estimates supporting your business partners’ goals.

Login Enterprise is the only tool in the industry that can help organizations create forward-looking predictable financial and user experience outcomes when migrating virtual hosted EUC workspaces to the cloud.

We can help you identify the correct cloud instance for your users, software stack, security tools, and configuration to optimize your OpEx-run costs. We have seen customers with a 40% reduction in their OpEx cost by leveraging Login Enterprise evaluate their existing deployments.

Suppose Login Enterprise reduces your yearly OpEx for cloud run costs by up to 40%. In that case, it pays for itself while delivering savings and additional lifecycle tools like proactive production monitoring, change costs, capacity modeling/comparison, workspace change validation, and more!

Also, with our new cost and capacity dashboards on the horizon, you will have a lifecycle management capability to understand your day two run capacity, growth and contraction, costs, and user experience.

When a significant change is going to be introduced into your environment, like a new OS Build, security tools, unified communications tools, or a new cloud instance type becomes available, you will have the ability to model and understand the cost, capacity, and user experience impact of that change to ensure you are always ahead of the curve with an optimized OpEx spend and user experience.