TCO Calculator Methodology: Formulas & Sources — Ænix

Every formula, every default, every source of the Cozystack TCO calculator — including the published sanity table with the cases where Cozystack loses.

Cozystack TCO Calculator — methodology and sources

Last updated: · dataset v0.2.0 · FX pinned 2026-07-01 · prices as of Q3 2026 · methodology & sources

Every number the calculator produces can be reproduced by hand from this page: the model rules, all defaults with sources, and a published sanity table that includes the scenarios where Cozystack loses.

Model rules — three cost articles

  • TCO = Software + Migration + Personnel. Exactly three articles, nothing else — every total on this site is the sum of these three lines.
  • Hardware and facilities are identical on both sides and excluded (servers, amortization, electricity, PUE, colocation, bandwidth). The internal sizing chain — CPU oversubscription 3:1, RAM target utilization 85%, raw storage = usable × per-platform replication factor (Ceph/LINSTOR 3.0, vSAN FTT=1 2.0, Nutanix RF2 2.0), nodes = max of the three ceilings + HA headroom (N+1, minimum +15%) — exists only to produce the node/core/socket counters that per-core, per-socket and per-node licenses bill against. Hardware and facilities are excluded because the estate is identical at equal node count; where storage replication differs (e.g. the Cozystack 3-replica option against a 2-replica competitor) node counts diverge, so compare at like-for-like replication. By default Cozystack uses 2 copies — like-for-like with vSAN FTT=1 and Nutanix RF2.
  • Software = licenses/subscriptions + vendor support + extra-product service lines. VMware phantom cores (16/socket minimum; 72/order for new purchases) are shown as their own line. When the K8s workload requires a separately paid product (OpenShift: containers need OCP on top of OVE), it appears as a visible extra-product line: OCP ≈ $875/core/yr (third-party reported) billed on K8s worker vCPUs at the Red Hat virtualization unit of 2 vCPU = 1 core-equivalent — a dedicated bare-metal pool would overstate the competitor. Cozystack support is priced per physical node/year at real Ænix 2026 prices across four tiers: business-hours $1,500, business-plus $3,600 (unlimited incidents), 24×7 $6,600, 24×7-premium $12,000. The default comparison uses the 24×7 tier. Renewal uplift and late-renewal penalties apply only after a renewal event inside the horizon; on the default 5-year horizon a 3-year prepaid contract renews once (year 3) so uplift applies to years 4–5, while a 3-year horizon sees zero uplift; uplift is not compounded across renewals (conservative toward the competitor). Support tiers switch cost or show an explicit status (included in base / tier unavailable / max tier) — never a silent downgrade; the business-plus tier has no competitor equivalent, so competitors are priced at their business-hours support price with a "no equivalent tier" flag.
  • Migration (one-time, target platform only): a fixed setup of $8,000 plus a marginal $140/VM by default, and an optional one-time "extras" bucket (default $0) for PS/training/consulting. Most of the work — discovery of the estate, standing up the target, network and storage cutover design, the runbook and rollback plan, the first machines by hand — is paid once whatever the estate size; only conversion and cutover of each machine is marginal, and automated tooling (Forklift / virt-v2v) keeps pushing that down. Both figures are owner estimates fitted to one field data point (50 VMs ≈ $15K total, typical migrations $10–20K); one observation cannot fix two parameters, so the split is taken at the end least favourable to Cozystack — $13,000 + $40/VM would match the same point and put a 1,000-VM migration at a third of what this model charges. Uniform for all directions; the migration duration only shapes the cumulative curve, never the sum. Both parameters await measured hours from completed migrations of different sizes.
  • Personnel (two-part days-per-month model, owner estimate — Ænix field data): days/mo = (base node-ops + service ops) × tier-coverage factor. Base node-ops = nodes × 0.25 day/mo × orchestration factor (table below) — anchored on physical hosts, not VMs, because per-host toil is what scales an operations team. Cost = days/mo × (monthly platform-engineer salary / 21.7 working days) × 1.28 employer overhead (IDC). Tier coverage: a selected 24×7-class tier that the vendor does not offer at any price (Proxmox, self-managed OpenStack) → ×1.5 self-managed on-call on (base + service) days, flagged; otherwise ×1.0. There is no ×3 multiplier and no compounding.
  • Services (owner estimate): three service types are part of the default workload — K8s clusters, managed databases and other managed services (caches/queues/buckets/LB) — counts SMB 1 + 2 + 2; Mid 3 + 8 + 6; Enterprise 10 + 30 + 20 — a fleet runs services, not only VMs. Each platform covers them per its capability class: managed (included in the software price — residual 0.15 day/mo per cluster + 0.1 per DB + 0.05 per other service), extra-product (paid software on top, see the Software article) or DIY (personnel days: 0.75 day/mo per self-run cluster + 0.5 per self-run production DB + 0.3 per self-run cache/queue/bucket/LB — roughly a 5:1 gap to managed). Other managed services are managed only on Cozystack — no on-prem platform ships managed caches/queues from a catalog. Manual work is priced, never hidden. A K8s cluster adds 3 worker VMs of the average profile to capacity for every platform; other managed services add operational days only, no capacity.
  • Pricing basis: realized (typical negotiated) by default, list as a uniform toggle. Street prices are always labeled "third-party reported, not vendor list price".

Per-platform orchestration factors (§5.4.1)

Orchestration-maturity multiplier on base node-ops days — owner field estimate, adjustable in the calculator (advanced section D); it reflects per-node manual toil relative to Cozystack (non-orchestrated platforms scale worse). Each value carries its one-line justification in the tooltip and in the source list below.

Personnel orchestration factors — owner field estimates (low confidence, adjustable), dataset v0.2.0.
PlatformFactorWhy (one line)
Cozystack (+ Ænix support)×1baseline orchestration maturity — tenant self-service and declarative operations set the per-node reference; non-orchestrated platforms scale worse (owner field estimate)
Nutanix NCI Pro×1mature HCI operations, one-click lifecycle — reference-class (owner field estimate)
VMware VCF×1mature VM operations tooling — the reference point (owner field estimate)
VMware VVF×1mature VM operations tooling — the reference point (owner field estimate)
vSphere Standard×1mature VM operations tooling — the reference point (owner field estimate)
OpenShift Container Platform×1.1orchestrated platform with declarative operations; slightly above the Cozystack reference because cluster, storage and database operators are separate lifecycles the team owns (owner field estimate)
OpenShift Platform Plus×1.1same orchestration maturity as OCP; the bundle removes separate ACM/ACS/registry installs but databases remain the team’s lifecycle (owner field estimate)
OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE)×1.1orchestration maturity: powerful operator model, slightly higher per-node toil than Cozystack from the learning curve and upgrade operations (owner field estimate)
OpenNebula×1.3orchestration maturity: thin ecosystem, more manual operations than the mainstream stacks → per-node toil ×1.3 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate)
Rancher (+ Harvester)×1.3orchestration maturity: K8s management is native but the VM layer via Harvester is the weak link → per-node toil ×1.3 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate)
Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure×1.3orchestration maturity: narrow specialist pool, less ecosystem automation → per-node toil ×1.3 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate)
Apache CloudStack×1.5orchestration maturity: dated tooling, manual operations at scale → per-node toil ×1.5 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate)
Harvester (SUSE)×1.5orchestration maturity: N-1 upgrade policy → ~2 real-toil upgrades/year → per-node toil ×1.5 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate); third-party corroboration: documented stuck upgrades — GitHub harvester#7457 (node stuck cordoned, 1.4.0→1.4.1), harvester#5828 (pre-drain stuck on expired certs), 1.7.1→1.8.0 field report "stuck four times" (research/05 §4)
OpenStack (vendor distro)×1.5orchestration maturity: the distro subscription buys support and LTS, not cloud operations → per-node toil ×1.5 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate)
OpenStack (self-managed)×2orchestration maturity: a self-managed cloud needs a team and has no vendor to call → per-node toil ×2.0 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate, was ×3.0 in v2.4); third-party corroboration: Canonical shift-math — 24×7 self-managed OpenStack ≈ 10 FTE (~$741k/yr); OpenMetal — private cloud breaks even at 400+ VMs per engineer (research/05 §4)
Proxmox VE×2orchestration maturity: no orchestration/self-service at scale, corosync forces multi-cluster manual ops → per-node toil ×2.0 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate); third-party corroboration: OpenMetal — 100+ VMs needs automation/templating engineering (limit is operational, not technical); Hornetsecurity — scaling Proxmox takes more admin involvement than vCenter (research/05 §4)

Declared assumptions and exclusions (§11)

  • Hardware and facilities: identical on both sides and excluded.
  • Backup & data protection as a cost line: excluded; capability differences (e.g. no CBT incrementals on Cozystack) are described in the capability notes.
  • Public cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP): a separate future calculator.
  • Hybrid pools / partial migration: the model prices a 100% migration of one profile; "keep the Oracle pool on VMware" is a text recommendation.
  • GPU: on-prem GPU sizing is by request.
  • Guest-OS licensing (Windows/RHEL): excluded symmetrically.
  • DR / second site: single-site model.
  • Training, dual-run, implementation/PS as separate lines: covered by the single "migration extras" input (default $0) at the user's discretion.
  • Flat prices over the horizon except modeled renewal events; FX pinned quarterly (1.09 EUR/USD, 2026-07-01).
  • NPV: at a 10% discount rate the default mid-size VMware VCF comparison yields $601,844 NPV of savings over 5 years (undiscounted: $781,922).

Scope caveats (Calculator A)

  • Network / egress: network/egress cost is not modeled in Calculator A — hardware and network fabric are treated as identical on both sides. Replication traffic, backup egress and colo uplink exist but are out of scope here (Calculator B).
  • Exit cost: migration is modeled one-directional (into Cozystack). Reversibility / exit cost is not priced — see the capability notes.
  • Dual-run: a parallel run of both stacks during migration (dual-run) is not priced by default; add it via the migration extras input if relevant.

Exit cost & reversibility

Leaving any platform — including Cozystack — is priced with the same instrument: the same setup plus per-VM migration cost. Open formats (KubeVirt VMs, standard qcow2/raw disks, Velero backups) keep the exit on the low end of the same range; there is no license penalty for leaving.

Published sanity table — including where Cozystack loses

All platform records × all presets, default assumptions, EU region, Q3 2026 (dataset v0.2.0). Negative savings = the competitor is cheaper.
ScenarioPlatformPlatform 5-yr TCOCozystack 5-yr TCOSavingsPayback
SMB — 50 VMsVMware VCF$460,712$141,606$319,106month 4
SMB — 50 VMsVMware VVF$234,920$141,606$93,314month 11
SMB — 50 VMsvSphere Standard$143,890$141,606$2,285month 56
SMB — 50 VMsNutanix NCI Pro$287,314$141,606$145,709month 6
SMB — 50 VMsOpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE)$121,813$141,606−$19,792not within horizon
SMB — 50 VMsOpenShift Container Platform$206,765$104,856$101,909month 6
SMB — 50 VMsOpenShift Platform Plus$239,816$104,856$134,960month 5
SMB — 50 VMsVirtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure$299,967$141,606$158,361month 6
SMB — 50 VMsProxmox VE$174,085$141,606$32,480month 19
SMB — 50 VMsOpenStack (self-managed)$150,105$141,606$8,500month 39
SMB — 50 VMsOpenStack (vendor distro)$124,068$141,606−$17,538not within horizon
SMB — 50 VMsApache CloudStack$134,348$141,606−$7,258not within horizon
SMB — 50 VMsOpenNebula$167,897$141,606$26,291month 22
SMB — 50 VMsHarvester (SUSE)$130,568$141,606−$11,038not within horizon
SMB — 50 VMsRancher (+ Harvester)$109,348$104,856$4,493month 42
Mid-size — 200 VMsVMware VCF$1,124,837$342,915$781,922month 1
Mid-size — 200 VMsVMware VVF$597,989$342,915$255,074month 9
Mid-size — 200 VMsvSphere Standard$394,789$342,915$51,874month 31
Mid-size — 200 VMsNutanix NCI Pro$729,445$342,915$386,530month 1
Mid-size — 200 VMsOpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE)$374,618$342,915$31,703month 32
Mid-size — 200 VMsOpenShift Container Platform$624,896$224,315$400,581month 1
Mid-size — 200 VMsOpenShift Platform Plus$724,049$224,315$499,734month 1
Mid-size — 200 VMsVirtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure$861,429$342,915$518,513month 1
Mid-size — 200 VMsProxmox VE$533,514$342,915$190,598month 10
Mid-size — 200 VMsOpenStack (self-managed)$467,569$342,915$124,653month 14
Mid-size — 200 VMsOpenStack (vendor distro)$377,706$342,915$34,791month 31
Mid-size — 200 VMsApache CloudStack$405,976$342,915$63,061month 22
Mid-size — 200 VMsOpenNebula$393,324$342,915$50,408month 25
Mid-size — 200 VMsHarvester (SUSE)$395,581$342,915$52,666month 25
Mid-size — 200 VMsRancher (+ Harvester)$332,646$224,315$108,331month 8
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsVMware VCF$5,002,441$1,514,562$3,487,878month 1
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsVMware VVF$2,593,993$1,514,562$1,079,430month 1
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsvSphere Standard$1,613,812$1,514,562$99,250month 44
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsNutanix NCI Pro$3,143,668$1,514,562$1,629,106month 1
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsOpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE)$1,278,612$1,514,562−$235,950not within horizon
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsOpenShift Container Platform$2,527,051$901,811$1,625,240month 1
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsOpenShift Platform Plus$2,940,190$901,811$2,038,379month 1
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsVirtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure$3,483,550$1,514,562$1,968,988month 1
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsProxmox VE$2,052,876$1,514,562$538,314month 13
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsOpenStack (self-managed)$1,777,106$1,514,562$262,544month 22
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsOpenStack (vendor distro)$1,460,711$1,514,562−$53,851not within horizon
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsApache CloudStack$1,578,931$1,514,562$64,369month 42
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsOpenNebula$1,335,270$1,514,562−$179,292not within horizon
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsHarvester (SUSE)$1,535,461$1,514,562$20,899month 53
Enterprise — 1,000 VMsRancher (+ Harvester)$1,309,344$901,811$407,533month 1

Corrections policy

Vendor or practitioner and found an inaccuracy? Write to Ænix — we verify and correct within 10 business days and keep this page's changelog public. While a figure is disputed it is relabeled "quote-based" rather than removed. Street/realized prices are never presented as vendor list prices.

All defaults with sources (139 figures)

Every sourced figure in dataset v0.2.0: value, source, date, source nature (§3.5/§9 sourcing policy)
#ItemValueSourceDateNature
A1VMware VCF · pricing · price · list350Broadcom list via Atonement Licensing (research/02)2026-Q3vendor-list
A2VMware VCF · pricing · price · realized (typical negotiated)250street/negotiated (Commercial platforms research (research/02)) — street $185–2752026-Q3third-party
A3VMware VCF · pricing · min cores/socket16Broadcom licensing minimum 16 cores/socket2026-Q3vendor-list
A4VMware VCF · pricing · min cores/order (new purchase)72Broadcom 72 cores/order (Apr 2025) — new purchase only, partially lifted for renewals (§3.3.C)2026-Q3vendor-list
A5VMware VCF · contract term (months)363yr prepaid is the norm (research/02 §1)2026-07third-party
A6VMware VCF · renewal uplift default0.3renewal uplift default +30% (documented cases up to 10×: AT&T 1050%, CISPE 800–1500%, SMB 350–450%) — Applied only to periods after a renewal event within the horizon (§4.4)2026-07third-party
A7VMware VCF · late-renewal uplift0.2Broadcom late-renewal +20% (research/02 §1)2026-07third-party
A8VMware VCF · support tier · 24×7-premium · multiplier1.25Premier Support uplift ×1.2–1.3 — placeholder, third-party reported — Refine at data-layer fill (§5.5); midpoint of the ×1.2–1.3 reference2026-07third-party (estimate badge) (verify before publication)
A9VMware VCF · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1mature VM operations tooling — the reference point (owner field estimate)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A10VMware VCF · storage replication factor2vSAN FTT=1 (mirror) — raw = usable × 2 (§4.1)2026-07vendor-list
A11VMware VVF · pricing · price · list135Broadcom list via Atonement Licensing (research/02)2026-Q3vendor-list
A12VMware VVF · pricing · price · realized (typical negotiated)110street/negotiated (Commercial platforms research (research/02)) — street $80–1102026-Q3third-party
A13VMware VVF · pricing · min cores/socket16Broadcom licensing minimum 16 cores/socket2026-Q3vendor-list
A14VMware VVF · pricing · min cores/order (new purchase)72Broadcom 72 cores/order (Apr 2025) — new purchase only, partially lifted for renewals (§3.3.C)2026-Q3vendor-list
A15VMware VVF · contract term (months)363yr prepaid is the norm (research/02 §1)2026-07third-party
A16VMware VVF · renewal uplift default0.3renewal uplift default +30% (documented cases up to 10×: AT&T 1050%, CISPE 800–1500%, SMB 350–450%) — Applied only to periods after a renewal event within the horizon (§4.4)2026-07third-party
A17VMware VVF · late-renewal uplift0.2Broadcom late-renewal +20% (research/02 §1)2026-07third-party
A18VMware VVF · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1mature VM operations tooling — the reference point (owner field estimate)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A19vSphere Standard · pricing · price · list50Broadcom list via Atonement Licensing (research/02)2026-Q3vendor-list
A20vSphere Standard · pricing · price · realized (typical negotiated)45street/negotiated (Commercial platforms research (research/02)) — street $40–50 (floor variant)2026-Q3third-party
A21vSphere Standard · pricing · min cores/socket16Broadcom licensing minimum 16 cores/socket2026-Q3vendor-list
A22vSphere Standard · pricing · min cores/order (new purchase)72Broadcom 72 cores/order (Apr 2025) — new purchase only, partially lifted for renewals (§3.3.C)2026-Q3vendor-list
A23vSphere Standard · contract term (months)363yr prepaid is the norm (research/02 §1)2026-07third-party
A24vSphere Standard · renewal uplift default0.3renewal uplift default +30% (documented cases up to 10×: AT&T 1050%, CISPE 800–1500%, SMB 350–450%) — Applied only to periods after a renewal event within the horizon (§4.4)2026-07third-party
A25vSphere Standard · late-renewal uplift0.2Broadcom late-renewal +20% (research/02 §1)2026-07third-party
A26vSphere Standard · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1mature VM operations tooling — the reference point (owner field estimate)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A27Nutanix NCI Pro · pricing · price · list650NCI Pro + Production, reseller list (CDW) $648.99/core/yr2026-Q3vendor-list
A28Nutanix NCI Pro · pricing · price · realized (typical negotiated)150street enterprise $70–130 pre-volume-discount; default midpoint-conservative $150 (§5.2/v1.1 #13) — quote ±40%; slider $70–650; output shown as a range2026-Q3third-party (estimate badge)
A29Nutanix NCI Pro · contract term (months)36avg contract 3.1 yr (research/02 §2)2026-07third-party
A30Nutanix NCI Pro · support tier · 24×7-premium · multiplier2.6Mission Critical SKU: $1,672.99 vs $648.99 (+158%) (research/02 §2)2026-Q3vendor-list
A31Nutanix NCI Pro · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1mature HCI operations, one-click lifecycle — reference-class (owner field estimate)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A32Nutanix NCI Pro · storage replication factor2Nutanix RF2 — raw = usable × 2 (§4.1)2026-07vendor-list
A33OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE) · pricing · standard SKU · list950OVE Standard $1,903.99 per 1–2 sockets ≤128 cores → $950/socket/yr (research/02 §3)2026-Q3vendor-list
A34OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE) · pricing · standard SKU · realized (typical negotiated)950list = realized until street data is available (§5.2)2026-Q3derived
A35OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE) · pricing · premium SKU · list1500OVE Premium (MW03815) MSRP ~$3,000 per 1–2 sockets ≤128 cores → $1,500/socket/yr (reseller MSRP: Senetic €2,640, CDW; research/05 §3)2026-07vendor-list
A36OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE) · pricing · premium SKU · realized (typical negotiated)1500list = realized until street data is available (§5.2)2026-07derived
A37OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE) · contract term (months)12Red Hat subscriptions — annual term (§5.2)2026-07vendor-list
A38OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE) · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1.1orchestration maturity: powerful operator model, slightly higher per-node toil than Cozystack from the learning curve and upgrade operations (owner field estimate)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A39OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE) · services · k8s · extraProduct · pricePerCoreYr875OCP virtualized ~$875/core/yr — within the third-party list range $500–1,250/core for 2-core packs (research/02 §3, rechecked research/05 §3)2026-07third-party (estimate badge)
A40OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE) · services · k8s · extraProduct · bareMetalNode · pricePerNodeYr25000OCP bare-metal Standard node SKU (MW04366), 1–2 sockets ≤128 cores: €23,232 net (EU reseller list, Software-Express) ≈ $25k/node/yr at pinned FX ≈ $196/core on a dense node (research/05 §3)2026-07third-party (estimate badge)
A41OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE) · services · k8s · extraProduct · bareMetalNode · maxCoresPerNode128MW04366 SKU coverage: 1–2 sockets, up to 128 cores per node (research/05 §3)2026-07vendor-list
A42OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE) · storage replication factor3ODF (Ceph) 3-replica — raw = usable × 3 (§4.1)2026-07vendor-list
A43OpenShift Container Platform · pricing · price · list8800OCP Standard bare-metal node SKU MW01502, 1 node (1–2 sockets): $8,800/yr list. Core-pair path for reference: MW01741 Standard $2,700 per 2 cores ($1,350/core/yr) — on dense nodes the node SKU is cheaper, so the model bills it (§1). Red Hat US list price file (SKU + List Price columns), republished by reseller Presidio; spot-checked against live CDW pages July 2026 — matching SKUs agree to the dollar (research/06 §1)2026-07vendor-list
A44OpenShift Container Platform · pricing · price · realized (typical negotiated)8800list = realized until street data is available (§5.2)2026-07derived
A45OpenShift Container Platform · contract term (months)12annual subscription (Red Hat standard term)2026-07vendor-list
A46OpenShift Container Platform · support tier · business-hours · multiplier1Standard SKU MW01502 — business-hours coverage (Red Hat production SLA). Red Hat US list price file (SKU + List Price columns), republished by reseller Presidio; spot-checked against live CDW pages July 2026 — matching SKUs agree to the dollar (research/06 §1)2026-07vendor-list
A47OpenShift Container Platform · support tier · business-plus · multiplier1no intermediate SKU between Standard and Premium — priced as Standard (§5.5)2026-07vendor-list
A48OpenShift Container Platform · support tier · 24×7 · multiplier1.5Premium bare-metal node SKU MW01501 $13,200/yr vs Standard $8,800/yr — Premium is the tier that adds 24×7 on Sev-1/Sev-2 (Red Hat production SLA). Red Hat US list price file (SKU + List Price columns), republished by reseller Presidio; spot-checked against live CDW pages July 2026 — matching SKUs agree to the dollar (research/06 §1)2026-07vendor-list
A49OpenShift Container Platform · support tier · 24×7-premium · multiplier1.5Premium bare-metal node SKU MW01501 $13,200/yr vs Standard $8,800/yr — Premium is the tier that adds 24×7 on Sev-1/Sev-2 (Red Hat production SLA). Red Hat US list price file (SKU + List Price columns), republished by reseller Presidio; spot-checked against live CDW pages July 2026 — matching SKUs agree to the dollar (research/06 §1)2026-07vendor-list
A50OpenShift Container Platform · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1.1orchestrated platform with declarative operations; slightly above the Cozystack reference because cluster, storage and database operators are separate lifecycles the team owns (owner field estimate)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A51OpenShift Container Platform · storage replication factor3ODF/Ceph default 3× replication — raw = usable × 3 (§4.1)2026-07vendor-list
A52OpenShift Platform Plus · pricing · price · list11055OpenShift Platform Plus Standard bare-metal node SKU MW01624, 1 node: $11,055/yr list. Core-pair path for reference: MW01622 Standard $3,685 per 2 cores ($1,842.50/core/yr). Bundle = OCP + Advanced Cluster Management + Advanced Cluster Security + Quay + ODF Essentials (256 TB/cluster cap). Red Hat US list price file (SKU + List Price columns), republished by reseller Presidio; spot-checked against live CDW pages July 2026 — matching SKUs agree to the dollar (research/06 §1)2026-07vendor-list
A53OpenShift Platform Plus · pricing · price · realized (typical negotiated)11055list = realized until street data is available (§5.2)2026-07derived
A54OpenShift Platform Plus · contract term (months)12annual subscription (Red Hat standard term)2026-07vendor-list
A55OpenShift Platform Plus · support tier · business-hours · multiplier1Standard SKU MW01624 — business-hours coverage (Red Hat production SLA). Red Hat US list price file (SKU + List Price columns), republished by reseller Presidio; spot-checked against live CDW pages July 2026 — matching SKUs agree to the dollar (research/06 §1)2026-07vendor-list
A56OpenShift Platform Plus · support tier · business-plus · multiplier1no intermediate SKU between Standard and Premium — priced as Standard (§5.5)2026-07vendor-list
A57OpenShift Platform Plus · support tier · 24×7 · multiplier1.493Premium bare-metal node SKU MW01623 $16,500/yr vs Standard $11,055/yr — Premium is the tier that adds 24×7 on Sev-1/Sev-2 (Red Hat production SLA). Red Hat US list price file (SKU + List Price columns), republished by reseller Presidio; spot-checked against live CDW pages July 2026 — matching SKUs agree to the dollar (research/06 §1)2026-07vendor-list
A58OpenShift Platform Plus · support tier · 24×7-premium · multiplier1.493Premium bare-metal node SKU MW01623 $16,500/yr vs Standard $11,055/yr — Premium is the tier that adds 24×7 on Sev-1/Sev-2 (Red Hat production SLA). Red Hat US list price file (SKU + List Price columns), republished by reseller Presidio; spot-checked against live CDW pages July 2026 — matching SKUs agree to the dollar (research/06 §1)2026-07vendor-list
A59OpenShift Platform Plus · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1.1same orchestration maturity as OCP; the bundle removes separate ACM/ACS/registry installs but databases remain the team’s lifecycle (owner field estimate)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A60Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure · pricing · price · list100unverified midpoint $50–100/core/yr; floor $12k/yr/cluster (research/02 §4)2026-07third-party (estimate badge) (verify before publication)
A61Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure · pricing · price · realized (typical negotiated)75unverified midpoint $50–100/core/yr (research/02 §4)2026-07third-party (estimate badge) (verify before publication)
A62Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure · contract term (months)12subscription, annual term (§5.2)2026-07estimate (estimate badge)
A63Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure · support tier · 24×7 · multiplier1.5placeholder — no public tier pricing2026-07estimate (estimate badge) (verify before publication)
A64Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure · support tier · 24×7-premium · multiplier2placeholder — no public tier pricing2026-07estimate (estimate badge) (verify before publication)
A65Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1.3orchestration maturity: narrow specialist pool, less ecosystem automation → per-node toil ×1.3 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A66Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure · storage replication factor3Virtuozzo Storage default 3-replica class (estimate)2026-07estimate (estimate badge) (verify before publication)
A67Proxmox VE · contract term (months)12annual subscription (proxmox.com pricing)2026-07vendor-list
A68Proxmox VE · support base · price · list1100Standard €550/socket/yr × 2 sockets (proxmox.com pricing)2026-07vendor-list
A69Proxmox VE · support base · price · realized (typical negotiated)1100public price list — no negotiated basis2026-07vendor-list
A70Proxmox VE · support tier · business-hours · multiplier1Standard subscription (base)2026-07vendor-list
A71Proxmox VE · support tier · business-plus · multiplier1No dedicated business-plus tier — priced as the Standard subscription (§5.5, v2.5)2026-07vendor-list
A72Proxmox VE · orchestration factor (base node-ops)2orchestration maturity: no orchestration/self-service at scale, corosync forces multi-cluster manual ops → per-node toil ×2.0 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate); third-party corroboration: OpenMetal — 100+ VMs needs automation/templating engineering (limit is operational, not technical); Hornetsecurity — scaling Proxmox takes more admin involvement than vCenter (research/05 §4)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A73Proxmox VE · storage replication factor3Proxmox-Ceph 3-replica — raw = usable × 3 (§4.1)2026-07vendor-list
A74OpenStack (self-managed) · contract term (months)12no vendor contract; 12mo bookkeeping period (§4.4)2026-07derived
A75OpenStack (self-managed) · support tier · business-hours · multiplier1self-managed — no vendor support contract ($0); operations cost lives in Personnel (§5.4)2026-07third-party
A76OpenStack (self-managed) · support tier · business-plus · multiplier1self-managed — no vendor tier; priced as business-hours (§5.5, v2.5)2026-07third-party
A77OpenStack (self-managed) · orchestration factor (base node-ops)2orchestration maturity: a self-managed cloud needs a team and has no vendor to call → per-node toil ×2.0 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate, was ×3.0 in v2.4); third-party corroboration: Canonical shift-math — 24×7 self-managed OpenStack ≈ 10 FTE (~$741k/yr); OpenMetal — private cloud breaks even at 400+ VMs per engineer (research/05 §4)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A78OpenStack (self-managed) · storage replication factor3Ceph 3-replica — raw = usable × 3 (§4.1)2026-07vendor-list
A79OpenStack (vendor distro) · contract term (months)12annual subscription (ubuntu.com/pricing/pro)2026-07vendor-list
A80OpenStack (vendor distro) · support base · price · list1775Canonical Ubuntu Pro + Infra $1,775/host/yr, 24/7 (ubuntu.com)2026-07vendor-list
A81OpenStack (vendor distro) · support base · price · realized (typical negotiated)1775public price list — no negotiated basis2026-07vendor-list
A82OpenStack (vendor distro) · support tier · 24×7-premium · multiplier1.94Red Hat OSP premium variant $3,449/node vs Canonical $1,775 (reseller-reported, research/03) — premium modeled as switch to RH OSP ($3,449/node/yr)2026-07third-party (estimate badge)
A83OpenStack (vendor distro) · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1.5orchestration maturity: the distro subscription buys support and LTS, not cloud operations → per-node toil ×1.5 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A84OpenStack (vendor distro) · storage replication factor3Ceph 3-replica — raw = usable × 3 (§4.1)2026-07vendor-list
A85Apache CloudStack · contract term (months)12annual support contract (ShapeBlue)2026-07derived
A86Apache CloudStack · support base · price · list1050ShapeBlue-derived ≈€1,079/host/yr → €1,050 model default (research/03 §4, footnote)2026-07derived (estimate badge)
A87Apache CloudStack · support base · price · realized (typical negotiated)1050derived anchor — no separate negotiated basis2026-07derived (estimate badge)
A88Apache CloudStack · support tier · business-hours · multiplier1base support contract2026-07derived
A89Apache CloudStack · support tier · business-plus · multiplier1No dedicated business-plus tier — priced as the base support contract (§5.5, v2.5)2026-07derived
A90Apache CloudStack · support tier · 24×7 · multiplier2placeholder — quote-based tiers, no public list2026-07estimate (estimate badge) (verify before publication)
A91Apache CloudStack · support tier · 24×7-premium · multiplier2.5placeholder — quote-based tiers, no public list2026-07estimate (estimate badge) (verify before publication)
A92Apache CloudStack · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1.5orchestration maturity: dated tooling, manual operations at scale → per-node toil ×1.5 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A93Apache CloudStack · storage replication factor3Ceph-backed primary storage 3-replica (§4.1)2026-07derived
A94OpenNebula · pricing · standard SKU · base fee $/yr · list7000Standard (9×5, 2 named accounts) base €7,000/yr — spotSaaS mirror of the vendor site (2026-05-20), base EUR amounts cross-checked vs Capterra/G2/PeerSpot snippets (research/05 §1)2026-05third-party (estimate badge)
A95OpenNebula · pricing · standard SKU · base fee $/yr · realized (typical negotiated)7000quote-based vendor — third-party mirror kept as both bases (research/05 §1)2026-05third-party (estimate badge)
A96OpenNebula · pricing · standard SKU · per managed node $/yr · list700Standard €700 per managed node/yr — spotSaaS mirror of the vendor site (2026-05-20), base EUR amounts cross-checked vs Capterra/G2/PeerSpot snippets (research/05 §1)2026-05third-party (estimate badge)
A97OpenNebula · pricing · standard SKU · per managed node $/yr · realized (typical negotiated)700quote-based vendor — third-party mirror kept as both bases (research/05 §1)2026-05third-party (estimate badge)
A98OpenNebula · pricing · premium SKU · base fee $/yr · list11000Premium (24×7, 4 named accounts) base €11,000/yr — spotSaaS mirror of the vendor site (2026-05-20), base EUR amounts cross-checked vs Capterra/G2/PeerSpot snippets (research/05 §1)2026-05third-party (estimate badge)
A99OpenNebula · pricing · premium SKU · base fee $/yr · realized (typical negotiated)11000quote-based vendor — third-party mirror kept as both bases (research/05 §1)2026-05third-party (estimate badge)
A100OpenNebula · pricing · premium SKU · per managed node $/yr · list1100Premium €1,100 per managed node/yr — spotSaaS mirror of the vendor site (2026-05-20), base EUR amounts cross-checked vs Capterra/G2/PeerSpot snippets (research/05 §1)2026-05third-party (estimate badge)
A101OpenNebula · pricing · premium SKU · per managed node $/yr · realized (typical negotiated)1100quote-based vendor — third-party mirror kept as both bases (research/05 §1)2026-05third-party (estimate badge)
A102OpenNebula · contract term (months)12annual subscription2026-07vendor-list
A103OpenNebula · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1.3orchestration maturity: thin ecosystem, more manual operations than the mainstream stacks → per-node toil ×1.3 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A104OpenNebula · storage replication factor3Ceph-backed datastore 3-replica (§4.1)2026-07derived
A105Harvester (SUSE) · contract term (months)12annual subscription (SUSE)2026-07vendor-list
A106Harvester (SUSE) · support base · price · list2410Harvester add-on MSRP $610 (Insight HAD-16-50-PS1) + Rancher Prime ~$1,800 — required pair (research/03 §5)2026-07derived (estimate badge)
A107Harvester (SUSE) · support base · price · realized (typical negotiated)2100effective $1,800–2,400/node/yr all-in (analyst, research/03 §5) — midpoint2026-07third-party (estimate badge)
A108Harvester (SUSE) · support tier · business-hours · multiplier1Priority-class add-on is the base anchor2026-07derived
A109Harvester (SUSE) · support tier · business-plus · multiplier1No dedicated business-plus tier — priced as the Priority-class anchor (§5.5, v2.5)2026-07derived
A110Harvester (SUSE) · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1.5orchestration maturity: N-1 upgrade policy → ~2 real-toil upgrades/year → per-node toil ×1.5 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate); third-party corroboration: documented stuck upgrades — GitHub harvester#7457 (node stuck cordoned, 1.4.0→1.4.1), harvester#5828 (pre-drain stuck on expired certs), 1.7.1→1.8.0 field report "stuck four times" (research/05 §4)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A111Harvester (SUSE) · storage replication factor3Longhorn default 3-replica — raw = usable × 3 (§4.1)2026-07vendor-list
A112Rancher (+ Harvester) · contract term (months)12annual subscription (SUSE)2026-07vendor-list
A113Rancher (+ Harvester) · support base · price · list2110Rancher Prime Standard $1,500/node/yr (reported $1,200–1,800) + Harvester add-on $610 — mandatory pair for VM workloads (research/03 §6, §5)2026-07third-party (estimate badge)
A114Rancher (+ Harvester) · support base · price · realized (typical negotiated)2110same anchor — reported range midpoint2026-07third-party (estimate badge)
A115Rancher (+ Harvester) · support tier · business-hours · multiplier1Standard subscription (base)2026-07third-party
A116Rancher (+ Harvester) · support tier · business-plus · multiplier1No dedicated business-plus tier — priced as the Standard subscription (§5.5, v2.5)2026-07third-party
A117Rancher (+ Harvester) · support tier · 24×7 · multiplier1.53Priority $1,800–2,800 vs Standard $1,200–1,800 → ≈×1.53 (research/03 §6, derived)2026-07derived (estimate badge)
A118Rancher (+ Harvester) · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1.3orchestration maturity: K8s management is native but the VM layer via Harvester is the weak link → per-node toil ×1.3 vs Cozystack (owner field estimate)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A119Rancher (+ Harvester) · storage replication factor3Longhorn default 3-replica (§4.1)2026-07vendor-list
A120Rancher (+ Harvester) · repricing $/node/yr192002025 core-based repricing: 16-core node ≈ $19,200/yr Std — SKU confirmed (CDW/Insight B-RP-2C4V-*, 2 cores/4 vCPU), numeric multiplier per Portainer example of 2025-11-13 (competitor, research/05 §2); toggle default OFF (§5.2) — label mandatory: "core-based SKU confirmed (CDW/Insight B-RP-2C4V-*); multiplier per Portainer (competitor)". Nearest public bundle anchor: Rancher Suite bare metal $9,800–13,100/server/yr incl. Harvester+Longhorn (Portainer, research/05 §2)2025-11third-party (estimate badge)
A121Cozystack (+ Ænix support) · contract term (months)12annual support contract, −20% annual prepay exists (aenix.io/pricing)2026-07vendor-list
A122Cozystack (+ Ænix support) · support base · price · list1500Ænix pricing 2026, per physical node — business-hours base $1,500/node/yr2026-07vendor-list
A123Cozystack (+ Ænix support) · support base · price · realized (typical negotiated)1500Ænix pricing 2026, per physical node — single basis2026-07vendor-list
A124Cozystack (+ Ænix support) · support tier · business-hours · multiplier1business-hours $1,500/node/yr (base) — Ænix pricing 2026, per physical node2026-07vendor-list
A125Cozystack (+ Ænix support) · support tier · business-plus · multiplier2.4business-plus $3,600/node/yr (BH + unlimited incidents) = $1,500 × 2.4 — Ænix pricing 20262026-07vendor-list
A126Cozystack (+ Ænix support) · support tier · 24×7 · multiplier4.424×7 $6,600/node/yr = $1,500 × 4.4 — Ænix pricing 2026, per physical node2026-07vendor-list
A127Cozystack (+ Ænix support) · support tier · 24×7-premium · multiplier824×7-premium $12,000/node/yr (24/7 + dev hours + fast response) = $1,500 × 8 — Ænix pricing 20262026-07vendor-list
A128Cozystack (+ Ænix support) · orchestration factor (base node-ops)1baseline orchestration maturity — tenant self-service and declarative operations set the per-node reference; non-orchestrated platforms scale worse (owner field estimate)2026-07owner-estimate (estimate badge)
A129Cozystack (+ Ænix support) · storage replication factor22 copies (like-for-like with vSAN FTT=1 / Nutanix RF2, tolerates 1 failure); 3-replica available via override for 2-failure tolerance — raw = usable × 2 (§4.1)2026-07vendor-list
A130Region EU · platform engineer salary $/mo6500roi-calculator regional survey (30+ providers)2026-04derived
A131Migration $/VM140Ænix field data: 50 VMs ≈ $15K total; typical Cozystack migrations $10–20K total — MARGINAL cost per VM on top of the fixed setup — conversion, verification and cutover of one machine once the pipeline runs, plus coordination with its application owner. At a loaded $100/hour this is ~1.4 h per machine; the plausible band is $40-140 ($0.4-1.4 h), and the conservative end is used. Slider $20-400; uniform for all directions. Tooling maturity (Forklift / virt-v2v / Move / MTV) differs — declared in methodology, not priced. Before v2.7 this figure was $300 and carried the whole migration on its own, which overstated large estates several-fold.2026-08owner-estimate (estimate badge) (verify before publication)
A132Migration extras (one-time)0SPEC §5.3 — optional one-time bucket for PS/training/consulting at the user's discretion — Default $0 — replaces the v1 implementation/dual-run/training/ramp-loss lines2026-07owner-estimate
A133Personnel base ops (days/mo per node)0.25Ænix field data: per physical node, ≈0.25 ops day/mo at orchestration factor 1.0 (a 20-node Cozystack fleet ≈ 2 incidents/quarter — light base)2026-07owner-estimate
A134Working days per month21.7average working days per month (260/12, §5.4)2026-07derived
A135Employer overhead0.28IDC burdened salary (+28%)2026-07third-party
A136FX EUR/USD (pinned)1.09ECB reference rate (pinned quarterly) — Placeholder — pin the actual ECB rate at dataset release; stamp date in PDF (§5.7)2026-07-01derived (verify before publication)
A137Preset SMB — 50 VMs · migration duration (months)3Ænix field data (owner estimate, §5.3) — SMB default (§4.3)2026-07owner-estimate
A138Preset Mid-size — 200 VMs · migration duration (months)6Ænix field data (owner estimate, §5.3) — mid-size default (§4.3)2026-07owner-estimate
A139Preset Enterprise — 1,000 VMs · migration duration (months)12Ænix field data (owner estimate, §5.3) — enterprise default (§4.3)2026-07owner-estimate

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