Reducing the cost of IT services. Providing Internet Access

I want to publish a series of articles on reducing the cost of IT services for large and medium enterprises. Although the government is trying to convince us of overcoming the crisis, I think this topic will be relevant for a long time.

Perhaps the published information will seem elementary and someone has long been using the methods described here. Unfortunately, I had to collect it bit by bit, read a lot, communicate with friends, think over the steps and their consequences. I will be very glad to discuss the limits of optimization are difficult to achieve and together we can come closer to them .

It is clear that we need to achieve the minimum cost of providing any service to our company. And of course, do not forget about optimizing the staff of IT employees. I believe that staff optimization should be carried out at the very end of all activities carried out before this, since for its assessment it is necessary to have the services provided with a minimum cost. Well, more on that later, but now let's start in order.

How to start your analysis? C IT budget!

Usually budgets are already broken down by articles, although this breakdown is done to plan the income and expenses of the company as a whole, and not just its service. Therefore, you may have to collect information with more necessary detail. Optimization should begin with the largest articles, tracking their relationship with others.

I want to start with the section “Communication Services” - this is landline and mobile communications, the Internet, the content of communication channels, etc.

Yummy, we will leave for later and in this article discuss the costs of the Internet.

For enterprises in large cities where the cost of Internet is low, the item of expenditure indicated above is probably not big, but outside of this, this topic is relevant.

The situation is as it is :
We have a company with several remote units, each of which needs access to the Internet. Each unit concludes its own agreements with various providers, on terms favorable to them.
How will it be :
It is necessary not to interrupt the continuity of service, reduce costs and get additional bonuses from the events.

A decrease in the cost of any service is possible due to its centralization and increase in the volume of use. But how to do that?

I propose the following solution:
1. We take the Internet from one provider at a single point.
2. We tie all our enterprises and units into VLAN (many providers have this service) and we provide Internet access to enterprises on it.

Let me give you some small calculations.
In my case, these are the following numbers:
1. Average cost of access to the Internet:
- 2 Mbps - 15 thousand rubles. per month
- 6 Mbps - 25 thousand rubles. per month
- 10 Mbps - 35 thousand rubles. per month
- 20 Mbps - 45 thousand rubles. per month
2. The average cost of a VLAN organization for one enterprise is 10 thousand rubles. per month for 10 Mbps.

In the graph below, we see how the effectiveness of this solution increases depending on the number of organizations participating in the project.

With 10 divisions, we get a 16.7% cost reduction, with 30 at 23.3% ...
Of course, this calculation is specific for my region, it will be different in your regions.

The following positive and negative aspects of this solution should be noted:
Pros :
- reduced costs for providing Internet access to enterprises and company divisions.
- By closing internal traffic (e-mail, document flow, corporate web resources, etc.) inside the VLAN, we reduce the load on the Internet channel and its throughput is much lower. Approximately 70% of the traffic is precisely traffic within the company and not going outside.
- ensuring a higher level of security.
- Administration and monitoring of all IT infrastructure included in the Company.
- gives a huge advantage for further maneuver for the development of a centralized information space of the Company (well, of course, it all depends on your IT strategy).
- a more stable solution for the continuity of services, as narrowed areas of responsibility of each participant. We have a single reliable provider of both the Internet and VLAN. For the continuity of service provision, employees of one enterprise from the Group of Companies are responsible.
- the presence of such centralized systems gives an additional advantage in negotiations with providers and other firms to lower prices for their services, since now they are taken in one place and in large volumes.
Cons :
- mutual settlements between enterprises and divisions within the Group of the Company for consumed services.
- the need to redistribute highly qualified personnel from various enterprises to the center, or the redistribution of administrative responsibilities.
- availability of redundancy of both the main Internet access channel and priority VLAN channels.

To implement this project, it is necessary to conduct many assessments, each company depending on its geographical location and the availability of providers is unique. It is necessary to choose and calculate the central point of providing Internet access correctly, it is good if this is the parent company, if not, then difficulties arise. Perhaps it is at this point that it is advisable to have the main server platform of the company? Of course there are a lot of questions, the answers to which each company must look for independently ...

Further, if there is interest in this topic, I want to share ways to reduce costs for other services provided by the IT department. This is landline and mobile communications, the use of legal reference systems, the purchase and repair of office equipment, the purchase and maintenance of software, the optimization of the IT staff, their functions, etc.