Hosted Jazz server?
Hey guys,
I tend to work with very small, distributed teams. Because of that, I've always used hosted services (i.e. hosted SVN/CVS/Trac, etc). These hosted services don't tend to be very sophisticated; I was wondering if it is possible to host Jazz commercially? Since there is no server cost per say for Jazz, if someone hosted Jazz, would they just charge their customers for the appropriate CAL (i.e. $1200/express, $3900/standard, etc). Any insight into this option would be really appreciated. Thanks, Eric. |
10 answers
A hosted option is an excellent idea.
Watch out for your costs - there is a server cost (for Express and Stanrdard, not for Express-C) and then you are correct you need client licenses. I am also not sure what the license agreement implications are. anthony |
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Ah thanks for pointing that out, I missed the server pricing for Express and Standard.
Yikes, 50K for the Standard server would probably make hosting pretty challenging; especially if it can only support 250 users. |
That is only $200 per head for the server. I'm not sure what the client costs are but $200 is pretty cheap considering all the things you can do (SCM, build, defect tracking, reports, etc).
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Totally agree that $200/user is a bargain. But unless I've misunderstood something, the pricing is $50K for the server upfront, and then for each $3900/user (i.e. each CAL you need).
I'm not criticizing the cost; Jazz/RTC certainly offers a lot of benefits for an enterprise so I think the cost is certainly justifiable. But, the price seems like it would make commercial hosting difficult or impossible. Ideally, you would want to keep the commercial hosting somewhere around $100/month/user I would think. Just ballpark. Given that, it doesn't seem possible to recoup the costs of the server when a single server only supports 250 users. I don't run a hosting company so all this is all academic I suppose. I'm just hoping someone will start commercially hosting Jazz/RTC so I can use it. Though unless I've misunderstood the pricing, I don't think that will happen in the near future. |
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Is that $3900/user a one-time fee or annual?
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I'm not positive, but I believe it is a 1-time fee.
I would imagine IBM Rational has some sort of subscription/assurance model you can purchase in addition to get updates. |
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The pricing typically includes first year of support (phone/email/web) and all updates for that year. Subsequent years are additional cost but you do get *all* the updates (eg: if significant functionality is added, you get it - still pay the annual maintenance price and don't get stung buying a new copy).
anthony |
the current pricing model reflects a perpetual license model offered by IBM.The initial cost includes in maintenance and support in its price for the first year. Subsequent years you only have to renew your maintenance with IBM.
Currently you can support user bases larger than 250 by having multiple server island's supporting upto 250 users each (i.e. 4 servers to support a 1000 users). We are working on plans to provide a RTC system that will support larger user bases in the near future. regards, Kartik Kanakasabesan Product Manager: Jazz Foundation |
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Gotcha,thanks for the information. Just to be clear, I don't think the 250 user limit per server is unreasonable, I think it is quite good for a v1.0; especially with server islands as you mentioned and a higher capacity system in the future.
Since an 'official' RTC person is on the thread, let me ask ... do you ever think that you will over a service provider level agreement (SPLA) in the future? The term SPLA is a Microsoft one - apologies for that, that is the licensing model that I am most familiar with. If you are not familiar with it, you can read more about it here: http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/licensing/default.mspx Basically the idea of a SPLA for a given product is to enable hosting companies to sell hosted versions of Microsoft software. MS realizes that hosting companies charge per month, so the SPLA enables these companies to pay per user per month instead of everything up front. As an example, instead of putting out $50K for a dual-proc SQL Server up front, I can just charge $25/user per month. Every month, as part of the SPLA agreement, I have to report how many users I have, and pay something like $10/user to Microsoft. The rest of the money is my profit. Those numbers are just representative of course since MS pricing swings drastically depending on who you buy it from. Hosting can sometimes be a polarizing issue. Some people think it's a good idea, some people would never consider hosting their source code in the cloud. But, do you think that RTC/Jazz will ever have a hosting friendly license that is similar in concept to a SPLA? |
Eric,
For the smaller customers you work with is their primary interest in buying software via a rental model (per month fee per user)? Or is it in having someone else to actually host the services and perform all administration functions? Would you say most customers interested in hosted developer tools fall in one category or the other. I know some fall in both but I am curious if you think many users would be satisfied with a rental model for the software and hosting it themselves when it comes to development tooling? --Rolf |
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