Eliminating Application Bloat

It is widely known that in every enterprise data center there are many applications that are simply shelfware, deployed but rarely used, or no-longer used. Users always want more applications, but never tell IT when they are done with them, or don't really need them. Part of this problem is that users don't know, and aren't accountable, for how much it costs to maintain these applications. Eliminating the application bloat by getting rid of redundant, no-longer-used or low-value applications can provide a huge cost saving. Technology Business Management (TBM) provides IT managers with the ability to track the cost, usage and utilization of applications including their fully-loaded cost to maintain in order to drive application rationalization decisions.

"Apptio enabled us to model the total cost of our desktop systems, understand underlying cost drivers and benchmark against the industry. That insight has helped us to identify $300k of desktop software license savings within the first year." Roger Zaremba, Chief Technology Officer, St. Luke's Health System

The Growing Cost of the Application Portfolio

In many organizations, applications are deployed and then run without an end of life strategy, leading to a constant proliferation of IT services that is costly to sustain over time. Older applications often require increasing levels of maintenance and support and many new applications deliver very similar functionality to existing services, but just on a new technology architecture.

Developing a framework for determining which applications are worthy of additional investment, replacement or retirement is critical to improving IT efficiency. Quantifying the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of a particular application or IT service is an important input to ensure rationalization decisions are backed by solid financial analysis.

Apptio's IT Cost Transparency solution enables organizations to easily model the total cost of ownership of their applications. The solution includes a comprehensive list of cost drivers including infrastructure (servers, storage, facilities, etc...), software licenses, hardware depreciation and labor (architecture, development, operations, support, etc...) to provide a holistic view of application costs.

A System for Tracking Application Cost and Quality

Apptio's Technology Business Management (TBM) solution enables IT managers to track the fully-loaded cost of IT services and applications as well as service quality and application usage information. Apptio takes data feeds from existing systems combined with a cost allocation model you create to holistically track the cost and value of applications.

Having a system of record consistent and accessible across all IT that tracks the TCO of applications, their usage and service quality empowers IT to make better decisions, show the cost and value of IT services to the rest of the business and drive initiatives such as application rationalization to greatly improve the efficiency of IT operations.

Getting Started today Fast Tracks Greater Efficiency

Every business that has implemented TBM has found significant savings and operates at a more efficient cost structure than previously. And every company, upon starting, has faced challenges of incomplete data and competing resources. However, Apptio's DataLink, Inference Engine™ technology and Slowly Changing Schema help companies quickly model their fully-loaded cost structure, make sense of existing data while allowing for assumptions and best estimates where data doesn't exist and provide a seamless path to improving data accuracy as processes mature.

A Complete Suite for Managing the Business of IT

Apptio's TBM solution provides the robust enterprise platform to track the cost of IT at a very granular level, provide the analysis and What If tools to find and justify cost reduction projects and the reporting capabilities to track long-term project success. Apptio provides five TBM applications designed to help Manage the Business of IT: IT Service Costing, Bill of IT, IT Benchmarking, IT Planning and IT Service Performance. These applications help IT and IT Finance managers systematically reduce cost, track the fully loaded cost and quality of IT Services, improve budgeting and planning processes and better communicate the value of IT to all key business stakeholders.