A Framework to Estimate Cost Savings from Virtual Lab Automation Solutions

Virtual Lab Automation (VLA) solutions reduce IT costs, accelerate the software time to market and improves the quality of the software developed. While evaluating the business value of a VLA solution, it is important to be able to estimate the magnitude of $ cost savings that a VLA solution can provide. We outline below a framework that you can use for quick estimates of cost savings in your software development and test scenario.

1. Reduction in IT costs — Virtualization can help drive cost savings and many analysts seem to agree. Virtualization reduces power requirements and improves space utilization. Beyond these benefits provided by vanilla virtualization, a virtual lab automation solution provides cost savings via better storage utilization (see earlier post on linked clones) and better lab utilization (e.g., resource sharing between users and teams). In addition, VLA can be used to rationalize lab infrastructure and help IT administrators perform better capacity planning.
2. Accelerate software time to market — VMLogix LabManager introduces a high degree of automation and dramatically reduces the manual effort and time necessary to provision multi-machine configurations. Features like automation with guest VMs brings about a huge saving (and practically eliminates user intervention) in the time required to provision and create multi-machine test bed environments. The VMLogix LabManager ROI calculator provides a framework for you to estimate the cost savings by transitioning a manual provisioning environment into one powered and driven by virtual lab automation.
3. Imporve software quality — VMLogix LabManager provides powerful third party ALM tool integrations which combined with the guest VM automation capabilities helps dramatically improve the test matrix coverage and thereby the software quality. Again, the VMLogix LabManager ROI calculator includes a framework to estimate the bug reproduction costs and the potential savings by using a virtual lab automation solution in the environment.

Pulling it all together

You can easily add up your cost saving estimations based on the framework for points #2 and #3 above. For #1, we do not have a published framework (updated 11/4/2008 – check the post Control and Reduce the IT cost spending in your software test lab), but with the ability to consolidate (currently at around 30-40 VMs on a single host and this consolidation is continuously improving with better hardware available) you can derive a basic savings estimate (for e.g., this press release from the Butler group though somewhat dated estimates that a 250 dual core server environment can save UK£ 2 Million).

In comparison to the above cost savings, virtual lab automation solutions like VMLogix LabManager cost a small fraction and IT administrators/users can justify their purchase & deployment in a very short duration of time.

- Srihari Palangala

Quantifying the savings on your test cycles from your virtual lab automation deployment

We have several posts on this blog discussing various aspects of virtual lab automation including specific product features, benefits, use cases, product integrations, customer experiences and so on. Sometime back I had mentioned that we would also look into a model to quantify the savings (and hence your return on investment) you should expect on your testing/software engineering cycles from deploying a virtual lab automation solution like VMLogix LabManager.

We do believe that virtualization is a must have technology for software testers and that Virtual Lab Automation offers a lot more over a hypervisor (like VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V or Citrix XenServer) – making it a compelling deployment in your software test lab.

For the model, we looked at two important parameters of the software testing cycle — (1) Manual provisioning costs and (2) Bug reproduction costs. The model first helps you determine your current costs for these two parameters and then projects a savings based on experiences with deploying a virtual lab automation solution.

Here is our model:

Quantifying your current costs and projected savings from a VLA deployment

Does this help you make a projection of the savings you should expect to see from the deployment of a virtual lab automation solution like VMLogix LabManager? How can VLA help control costs of your software testing efforts?

If you would like to learn more about VMLogix LabManager, go ahead and register on our virtual portal. You will also have access to a free whitepaper “Five Best Practices for Improving Software Development and Testing“.

Alternatively, you can also make a request for a free LabManager 30 day evaluation (VMLogix LabManager supports all leading hypervisors from Citrix, Microsoft and VMware, including the recently announced Microsoft Hyper-V. You can read more about the LabManager system requirements).

- Srihari Palangala