V100 Server On-Prem vs. AWS P3 Instance Cost Comparison
&gt; Our TCO includes energy, hiring a part-time system administrator, and co-location costs.<p>Which is a myopic view of TCO. This ignores so many things about purchasing on-prem hardware (for good or bad):<p>Admin:<p>- Cost associated with finding an admin who understands how this thing works<p>Speed &#x2F; convenience:<p>- Try before you buy<p>- Time it takes for the box to be built, shipped and sent to the data center<p>- Time (and cost) it takes to install software, drivers, etc<p>Maintenance &#x2F; Capitalization &#x2F; Finances:<p>- 3-year? What is the useful life of this? When does it seemingly become obsolete?<p>- AWS will continually upgrade their hardware and you keep paying the same<p>- Hardware can be capitalized, which means you can push it to the balance sheet (for tax or valuation purposes)<p>- Spending $90k instead of $184k in year 1 with the option to turn it off if you want (no longer need). This could be very valuable for a startup who wants elastic spending patterns.<p>Hidden costs:<p>- Returns, breakage, warranty in case of a hardware failure<p>I understand why there is a market for this product, but it&#x27;s not always an apples&#x2F;orange comparison. Generally speaking, if you know what your workload is going to be, (I&#x27;d be hard pressed if a lot of orgs really know the answer to this) then on-prem hardware is not a terrible choice, but it has to be analyzed appropriately.