Hybrid IT TCO Impact Solution

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Overview

Prior to setting up the Hybrid IT TCO Impact solution, let us make sure we know why we are doing this and understand the reasons and goals that led us to this point. This will ensure the setup process is clear and focused, making it easier for you to understand and use the solution effectively.

The following specific problems can be solved by this solution.

The following screen gives a high-level overview of the configuration steps. The detailed configuration requirements for each step, are described later in the document.

Component Install

The first step is to install the three new components that have been created for Hybrid IT TCO Impact solution.

Note: Ensure the Components Version in Project Settings has been set to Version 120. Once installed, you can switch the Component Version back to the desired/(previous) template.

Applications Workbench component

The first component to install is theApplications Workbenchcomponent.

This component does not have the Hybrid IT TCO Impact reference in the name but is essential to the Hybrid IT TCO Impact reporting by allowing users to add in essential Application metadata. The most important (new) field in this Workbench is the column of “Hosted On”. This must be filled for all Applications with the value of either:On Prem, Private Cloud or Public Cloud . In addition to this new field, it allows users to enrich their existing Applications metadata. Another important field for this solution is “Application Investment Objective ”. Ensure that the value is set to “Migrate” for the applications subject to migration.

Hybrid IT TCO Impact component

The second component is theHybrid IT TCO Impactcomponent.

This creates the framework and hence installs all the necessary tables (both editable and normal), metrics and models associated with the Hybrid IT TCO Impact solution. It introduces the application migration workbench.

Note: It also deploys three reports. These are not intended for end-users but rather to facilitate the step where the average TCO, Unit Cost and Usage Volumes of the current set of applications is captured and “frozen” as a snapshot in time (as per Step 3 in the above process). For more details on the content of this component, refer to the description when navigating to the component.

Hybrid IT TCO Impact Reporting component

The third and final component is theHybrid IT TCO Impact Reportingcomponent.

This installs three end user reports. It goes from a high-level “level 100” type of report aimed for C-suite executives down to “level 300” where individual applications can be analyzed for financial benefits / drawbacks.

For more details on the content of this component, refer to the description when navigating to the component.

Architecture

IBM Apptio Framework

The above diagram gives an overview of the IBM Apptio Framework as it relates to the architecture underpinning the Hybrid IT TCO Impact solution. One can see the various flows from Raw Source all the way to the end user reports. Main items to call out are as follows:
  1. Introduction of Application Workbench and Application Migration Workbench: Set of editable tables allowing for some much-needed editing on both existing data as well as some new columns. The Application Mapping one requires the (manual) unappend from the Application Master data to allow for the Editable Transform (ET Transform) to become the new (edited) feed into the Application Master data.
  2. Minimal changes to Applications Master Data: Apart from swapping out of the feed, this architecture is intended to minimize any direct impact on the Applications Master Data. Some new columns (e.g.: Hosted On, Migration Strategy etc.) are introduced, indirectly, via the Mapped Columns step of Applications ET Transform into Application Master data.
  3. Non-End-User reports critical to “freezing” migrated data: As shown in the architecture, there are three reports on the left hand (starting position) side; as opposed to on the right hand (final position) side. This is intentional, since these capture the migration data and are created in such a way that that data needs to be brought back into Apptio, into tables to ultimately facilitate the Before vs. After comparison.
  4. After the migration of applications, the key new table acts as the primary source for most configuration, models, and reports.

IBM Apptio Model Allocations

The IBM Apptio framework gives an overview of the new Tables, Master datasets etc. that get introduced, whereas the above diagram focuses on the new Model metrics and allocations.
  • Cost Post Migration: Modelled metric that is created as a “parallel” modelled metric to the main Cost model, in order to:
    • Not “disturb” the existing Cost Model
    • Allow for a linkage to be made between the Applications object (containing the new, Target application data) and the Applications Migrated object (containing the old, migrated application data)
    • Allows for any extra drivers to be set (related to migration costs specifically) on an as-need basis by the customer (who wishes to further expand this modelled metric)

      Note: If you’re an existing customer you will have to (manually) ensure this modelled metric has all the necessary allocation lines tagged, as per your existing Cost Model:

    • From Cost Source to IT Resource Towers
    • From IT Resource Towers to Applications
    • From Applications to Applications Migrated
      • Weight By: Target Weighting
      • Data Relationship: Application ID = Target application ID
  • App Count Post Migration: Modelled metric that is needed to capture the Application Count of the new, target applications. This is needed to ensure that the calculation of the Trailing 12months Average takes into account the months that the applications is “in existence”. I.e. in certain instances, the application might only exist for e.g. 8 months. If that’s the case, we need to make sure the Costs get divided by 8 and not a “hardcoded” count of 12.

The Count of the old/migrated applications already gets picked up when the “intermediate” reports are being created. This modelled metric gets leveraged further on into some of the other calculated metrics and reports to ensure the new, target application count is correctly represented.

Note: If you’re an existing customer you will have to (manually) ensure this modelled metric has all the necessary allocation lines in place, as per the above diagram, this means:
  • Create a “fake” driver set to 1 into Cost Source
  • Create an allocation from Cost Source into IT Towers.
    • No Weight By or Data Relationship needed
  • Create an allocation from IT Towers into Applications Migrated
    • Using the “Standard Value” method
    • Value set to Target Application Count column
  • Cost Pre Migration: Modelled metric exposing the main value of the “Trailing 12months” Avg Monthly TCO taken from the “frozen” data for the migrated applications.

This model is pre-created, i.e. no manual setup required.

Configurations

This section describes all the configuration activities associated with lighting up the Hybrid IT TCO Impact reports.

Steps 1-4 require some configuration (highlighted inyellow) whereas steps 5-6 are the end result, focused on the benefits & insights the reports deliver.

  1. Step 1: TCO current applications
    • In order to light up the 3 (end user facing) Hybrid IT TCO Impact reports, step 1 is to ensure the total cost of ownership (TCO), usage volumes and Unit Costs are in place and being calculated for the current set of applications. Using the normal, best practice ATUM allocations & model.
    • Even before any applications would be targeted for migration, leverage the new Applications Workbench to make sure values are entered for at least:

    Hosted On: On Prem, Private Cloud or Public Cloud

    Application Investment Objective: Sustain, Retire, Migrate, Invest

    Both to be set directly at the application level.

    Note: To start using the Applications workbench functionality, one will have tomanually unappend the Raw/Source Application data from the Applications Master Data and re-append it into the Applications Source feed table. As highlighted by the above architecture view, this step unlocks the Application data to become available for editing.

    Sample:

    The above sample shows the current Application ABC, living it’s “normal life” with TCO, Volumes and Unit Cost established as the foundational starting point.

  2. Step 2: Capture Target Apps’ data

    Once the current application is set to Migrate, it’s essential to start capturing application migration related metadata, as it becomes available. This is where the new Application Migration Workbench comes into play, with 3 areas of information setting. Note: The below tables are only exposing applications that have the Application Investment Objective set to “Migrate”

    Application Migration: This editable table contains the following fields:
    • Migration Strategy(Rehost, Replatform, Repurchase, Refactor)

      Free text field but ideally to be set with one of the above values

      Used in the reports as a Pivot and/or Filter option.

    • Migration Status(Planning, In Progress, Reviewing, Done)

      Indicates mostly the operational status of the migration.

      Free text field but ideally to be set with one of the above values

      The value “Done” is used to indicate that the application’s data is ready to be “frozen” and hence is used as a critical filter on the “intermediate” reports. Note: used in conjunction with the Apptio Migration Status field set to “Done”.

    • Apptio Migration Status (Planning, In Progress, Reviewing, Done)

      Indicates mostly the Apptio allocation status of the migration.

      Free text field but ideally to be set with one of the above values

      The value “Done” is used to indicate that the application’s data is ready to be “frozen” and hence is used as a critical filter on the “intermediate” reports. Note: used in conjunction with the Migration Status field set to “Done”.

    • Month Year Migrated

      Indicates when the application officially got migrated.

      Free text field but ideally to be set as e.g.: Oct 2025.

    Application Migration Relationship: This editable table contains the following fields:
    • Target Application ID: Application ID of the new, target application. Expected to be onboarded and exist into the Applications Master data (as per normal). Note: Can be more than 1, i.e. supports scenarios where 1 current application is getting migrated into 1,2,3, n number of new applications.
    • Target Weighting: In case of a 1-m scenario, this allows for a weighting to be set and associated with the m(any) new applications. If not applicable of left blank, this will be set to 1.
    • Application Migration Group ID: To be created and set manually. In case of a 1-m scenario this would allow the user to look at the financial before vs. after comparison data through the lens of an aggregated group as opposed to individual applications (where some of the financials might not make sense to be viewed at)

    E.g:

    Current/Old Application| New/Target Application |App Migration Group ID

    ABC 123 App Group A

    ABC 456 App Group A

    Application Migration Settings:

    Editable Table allowing the user to set certain settings with respect to Target tracking and customizing the HTML text on the reports. The Description column provides the necessary details on each of the settings.

    In Step 2 Application ABC has now been flagged to Migrate, the migration process has started and is ongoing. Application XYZ has been identified as the Target application ID.

  3. Step 3: “Freeze” current application metrics

    At some point the current application will be considered migrated. Apptio will acknowledge this when BOTH the Migration status and Apptio Migration status columns have been updated and set to “Done”.

    In Step 3 Application ABC has been fully migrated. Hence time to “freeze” and capture the 12months average data (in blue) with respect to TCO, Volumes and Unit Cost.

    That is considered the trigger point for when the “freezing” of the data of the current application takes place. This freeze will happen as follows:The set of the below 3 reports will pick up all applications in the Applications Master Data where the Migration status and Apptio Migration status columns are equal to Done. These reports will calculate the Trailing Twelve months average for the key metrics of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), Volumes and Unit Cost. The latter 2 metrics will only be calculated at the Summary level and therefore don’t apply to the Cost Pool and IT Tower reports.

    Note: The formula that calculates the average ensures it checks how long the application has been in existence for by checking the application count (since not all applications might have been in existence for 12months).

    Where part a happens automatically, this part b requires the user to set up an Apptio-to-Apptio datalink connector. This connector is necessary to take the report output, “freeze” it at that period in time and drop it back into the associated table.

    Apptio Datalink Connector: Sample below. For more details, consult Help Center.

    Associated “Receiver” Tables

    Applications Migrated Raw

    Applications Migrated CP Raw

    Applications Migrated IT Raw

    Note: This connector is intended to drop in ALL the migrated applications as it pertains to a given month. In that sense it will be a cumulative view across time. Month 1 might have 10 applications. Month 2 might have 15 applications.
  4. Step 4: Model Old & New

    Once Step 3 has been completed, all the necessary “Before Migration” data is now in place and available across the 3 tables, as per above.

    The main dataset of Applications Migrated gets used and automatically exposed to the (new) modelled metric of Cost Pre Migration. No action required here, since the Driver for this modelled metric is automatically created to use the Avg Monthly TCO column. The 2 other datasets don’t get exposed to any modelled metrics, since they’re only being used in the Hybrid IT TCO Impact Analysis (level 300) report. They have a modelled step added to them so they can get reported on as needed.

    The key configuration activity in this step is related to the (new) modelled metric of Cost Post Migration. The component introduces an allocation from Applications to Applications Migrated, leveraging the existing Cost model as the Driver. This suffices to light up the Hybrid IT TCO Impact Insights (level 200) report. However, in order to light up the Hybrid IT TCO Impact Analysis (level 300) report, the model of Cost Post Migration needs to replicate all allocation lines from Cost Source up to Applications and into Applications Migrated. Hence, it’s required to (manually) Tag all these existing Cost allocation lines with the new modelled metric of Cost Post Migration , in order for the Cost Pool and IT Tower Analysis breakdowns to work on the Hybrid IT TCO Impact Analysis (level 300) report.

    The 3rd and final new modelled metric of App Count Post Migration is needed to capture the Application Count of the new, target applications. This is needed to ensure that the calculation of the Trailing 12months Average takes into account the months that the applications is “in existence”.

    Note: If you an existing customer you will have to ensure this modelled metric has all the necessary allocation lines in place, as per the above diagram, this means:
    • Create a “fake” driver set to 1 into Cost Source
    • Create an allocation from Cost Source into IT Towers.
    • No Weight By or Data Relationship needed
    • Create an allocation from IT Towers into Applications Migrated
    • Using the “Standard Value” method
    • Value set to Target Application Count column

Via the above 3 modelled metrics, the framework is now in place to allow for the Before vs. After migration results to get calculated and exposed on the reports.

Various calculated metrics are in place to facilitate this, the most notable ones are those starting with “TTM…” in the name. These are in place to ensure that the TCO, Unit Cost and Volume data for the application post migration are equally using the Average Trailing Twelve Months (TTM) methods to ensure it’s an apples-to-apples comparison between the Before vs. After results.

In Step 4 the new Application XYZ is now ready and hence being compared on an ongoing basis to the “frozen” data of the migrated Application ABC.

Reporting

The Hybrid IT TCO Impact Reporting component installs 3 reports, as part of the Reporting Collection called “Hybrid IT”. One will see a reference to Level 100, 200, 300 implying that the set of reports each time exposes more data and goes a step further & deeper.

Level 100: Hybrid IT TCO Impact - Summary

Note: This report mainly uses the Applications Master dataset (as per normal) as well as the new column of “Hosted On” as introduced via the new Applications Workbench component. This column is to be set across the Applications, at the Applications level. Target setting is to be done using the new Applications Migrations Workbench.

Level 200: Hybrid IT TCO Impact - Insights

Note: This report mainly uses the (new) Applications Migrated dataset. It requires the Before Migration data to be brought in via the “freezing method” as outlined before.

Level 300: Hybrid IT TCO Impact - Analysis

Note: This report mainly uses the (new) Applications Migrated dataset. It requires the Before Migration data to be brought in via the “freezing method” as outlined before. It also requires the Cost Pool and IT Tower Details data to be flowing, as described before.

Call Outs

This final section aims to summarize a set of “call outs” to be mindful of when configuring as well as operating this solution as part of your monthly IBM Apptio business mgmt processes.

Comparison Time Horizon

The method being used for the Before vs. After comparison is the Trailing 12 months method. When reviewing migrated applications throughout time and comparing them to the new, target applications, be mindful that after 12 months the old/migrated application will no longer be picked up or at least no costs will show up anymore for those applications.

In other words, at this point the comparison time horizon (the time period during which you can do a meaningful comparison between the Before vs. After TCO, volumes and Unit Cost) is somewhat set at max. 12 months.

Add other drivers into Cost Post Migration

Take advantage of the fact that this new modelled metric Cost Post Migration is a “parallel” cost model.

Add in any other financial drivers you believe should be considered as part of the Cost Post Migration view if any of them aren’t “naturally” being picked up by the Cost model.