A vital step in any major IT decision is financial analysis. Unfortunately, many organizations wait to assess cost until after weeks or even months of technical brainstorming and a sky-as-the-limit holiday wish list of expensive technology. This becomes precarious when your Oracle sales person submits a large forecast entry, thereby initiating a locomotive-like passion within Oracle to ensure that you actually buy the software.

In reality, there are a finite number of deployment strategies for Oracle, including high availability and disaster recovery. Combined with predictable vendor discounting and an experienced analyst, it is possible to determine what each strategy means for your organization from a cost perspective. The following costs can and should be comprehensively modeled, preferably in the beginning of an Oracle-related infrastructure project: initial capital, year-two operations, three-year TCO, year-over-year operations, payback period and “bang for buck”, among others.