Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
costs as mentioned in (McRitsie, 2008), (Optitz,
2008) and (TechAmerica, 2008) can be operational
attributes and business premises.
Operational attributes refer to hardware costs,
software and system license fees. Hardware costs
include new resources acquisition, replacement
and maintenance of existing resources. Hardware
acquisition costs depend on the infrastructure hard-
ware list (servers) and the end user hardware list
(laptops, CPU, printers). Hardware maintenance
costs usually are estimated using measures that
compute the Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) or
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF). Software,
system and database license fees refer to opera-
tional software that will be installed in computer
systems necessary for the operation of the new
application. License costs are defined by the
number of inbound and outbound workstations
in which the new application will be installed.
The number of users usually affects cost mainly
through the number of software licenses needed
and recruitment and training costs.
Several performance factors are associated
with the non-functional requirements of an ap-
plication that apart from the need to incorporate
them in the software also rise the need for busi-
ness premises. The average transaction rate, the
storage needs, security issues and reliability fac-
tors require computational power and capacities.
Computational power in low level is related to
electricity costs. Other business premises that are
necessary for IT development and are associated
to total costs involve labor rates, outsourcing
agreements and operational locations. Labor rates
are related to the personnel expenses and training
procedures. Outsourcing agreements may include
hardware/software leasing or development. Dif-
ferent physical locations of the organization and
different access points to the application are as-
sociated to rental or leasing expenses. Tables 3
and 4 summarize in-house infrastructure costs.
B. Software Costs
Software development costs are divided into four
groups. Product, platform, process and person-
nel drivers are pointed out by literature (Boehm,
1981) as the most important aspects that determine
software costs. Tables 5 to 8 summarize in-house
software development cost drivers.
Product attributes related to a software project
include descriptive variables and size indicators.
The aggregation of variables of both categories
is indicative of the complexity of the new projects
and the expected difficulties that might rise. De-
scriptive variables provide information regarding
the development type of the project, the applica-
tion type (IT project type ERP, MIS, CRM or Web
applications, etc.) and the user type of the ap-
plication (professional, amateur, concurrent, ca-
Table 3. Operational Drivers
Drivers
Operational Drivers
New resources
Servers, Laptops, PCs
Peripheral devices, CPU, memory
WAN/LAN equipment
Maintenance and
replacement costs
CPU
Table 4. Business Premises
Hard Disk
Power supply
CPU Cooler
Drivers
Business Premises
Personnel Expenses
Labor Rates
Training expenses
Application Software (office applica-
tions, mail)
System Software (Operating system)
Database (Licences for end users)
License fees
Electricity costs
Electricity consumption
Physical Locations
Rental expenses
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