System Administration

Pricing Accurately

Phil Windley, CIO of Utah notes some proposed changes in the pricing for network access: from per port to per person.

Pricing network access per port, or network drop, appears to make sense. After all, each port bears a quantifiable cost to pull from the wiring closet to the cubicle, or from the central office to the building, and an additional cost to consume a port on the uplinking device, whether a hub, a switch, or a router. Those, however, are sunk costs, capital expenditures, and do not reflect the operating costs of providing the services associated with access: IP address management, name resolution, and, most significantly, the help desk. Address management and name resolution are insignificant costs compared to the help desk. Pricing per person addresses the most expensive operating cost, while garnering additional benefits: cleaner directory data.

The problem with pricing per user account is an annoying one: not all users are people.

5:20:11 PM # Google It!
categories: System Administration