ITIL Life Cycle Costs Analysis Tools

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Initial Costs. The initial costs of acquiring and deploying a solution
- Hardware, including appliances, additional network equipment (e.g., management network, network taps, load balancers), and hosts for non-appliance components (e.g., consoles)
- Software and software licensing fees for IT components and supporting software (e.g., reporting tools, database software)
- Installation and initial configuration costs, which could include external assistance as well as internal labor
- Customization costs, such as having programmers develop custom scripts or reports
- Training costs, if the necessary training is not included as part of the initial hardware and software purchase.

Maintenance Costs. Expected maintenance costs for IT solutions
- Labor. This includes the cost of staff performing IT administration and analysis.
- Software licensing fees, subscription fees, or maintenance contracts. These costs, typically incurred on an annual basis, usually provide the purchaser with IT software and signature updates.
- Technical support fees. Many organizations purchase technical support contracts for their IT products; these contracts are typically annual. Some organizations pay a fee per technical support call instead of an annual contract.
- Training costs. Training might be needed periodically in preparation for deploying new versions of an IT product, as well as for new IT users and administrators. Organizations might want to have customized training classes that focus on the elements of the IT product that are most important to the organization, and also take into account certain aspects of the organization’s environment and needs.
- Customization costs. During the use of an IT product, users and administrators might need the product to be further customized, such as having programmers develop additional custom reports or modify existing reports, and having programmers or administrators create custom analyzers and signatures.
- Professional services or technical support that falls outside the technical support contract. Examples include designing IT implementations, performing product installations, tuning sensors or agents, creating and customizing reports, and assisting with incident response efforts. Organizations can perform these services themselves, or they can purchase services from IT vendors and third parties.