Originating Author: Dave Vellante
According to Wikipedia, Amdahl's Law, named after computer architect Gene Amdahl, is used to find the maximum expected improvement to an overall system when only part of the system is improved. Interpreted simply, Amdahl's Law says focus on improving the things that make the biggest difference overall.
Applied to storage TCO, this logic suggests that organizations should start with TCO factors that make the biggest impact, particularly IT staff productivity and storage utilization. I’m not suggesting that other items aren’t worth considering, but these are the so-called “biggies” in my experience. As stated in previous Alerts (In search of storage ROI and Storage TCO - comparing apples to apples), there are typically two main cost areas that provide the most benefit when consolidating storage: 1) IT staff productivity (i.e. TBs managed per person); and 2) Storage utilization. Optimize these before spending time on factors that won't make as much of a difference.