The rest of the series: Directories branching out The main article. What directories are and how they work Take these steps to achieve an enterprise directory Microsoft's Active Directory Services may lighten your load Metadirectories are the kings of consolidation Rowe and Blum are principals at Rapport Communication, Inc., an industry consulting company specializing in directories, messaging and groupware. They can be contacted at www.rapport .com.

By Gary Rowe and Daniel Blum
Network World, 9/15/97

If your chief information officer asks how much an enterprise directory costs, explain that the real question is can you afford to go without one.

That's really the better question because it's difficult to determine the real cost of a directory, especially because they tend to be bundled with an application. Plus, the bulk of the cost of owning a directory stems from support; the costs associated with training, setup, configuration and administration can be quite substantial.

But the opportunity costs are easier to grasp. That is, what would it cost if you didn't have effective directories? When the enterprise or a business unit needs a new application, chances are that application needs a directory for routing, security, groups and other functions. The manual effort required to support that directory interferes with deploying that application. Opportunities may be lost because there simply isn't enough time or money to deploy the applications.

Invalid or out-of-date directory information creates hidden costs, too. If users can't find each other in the directory, they can't communicate, resulting in reduced productivity. Lost messages lead to misunderstandings, new employees can't access re-quired systems, and security risks are incurred when someone leaves the company but his or her logon ID remains.

A directory infrastructure that allows a single point of administration for all applications, training, setup, configuration and administration will reduce costs overall. It will be easier to "directory-enable'' new applications. Information is more likely to be valid and up to date. With every new application that leverages the directory infrastructure, the cost savings increase.

Manageable, consolidated directories also offer enterprises a golden opportunity to reduce desktop maintenance costs by storing configuration items that might otherwise need to be held in PC-based files, scripts or registries. When such information is held in the directory, changes need only be made once. When information is filed in the PC, the updating burden is costly.

To get the actual numbers in your company, you'll need to inventory existing systems, survey employees, and talk to other corporate teams charged with reducing overall desktop cost of ownership and deploying new applications. Quantify the costs of maintaining and administering all your existing directories, and project the reduction in these costs as you begin to consolidate around a network operating system (NOS) or metadirectory. Input some per-employee savings for reduced PC configuration and increased productivity, and take credit for some of the benefits that breakthrough directory-enabled applications can bring.

Finally, subtract the cost of your planned NOS or metadirectory hardware, software and projected administration to get an estimated return on investment.

In a typical Fortune 1000 corporation, a consolidated enterprise directory, could save anywhere from $10 million to several hundred million dollars over a five-year period. This includes reductions in quantifiable personnel costs, network costs and redundant administration and development costs, as well as opportunity costs, productivity gains, desktop maintenance cost reductions and benefits from breakthrough directory-enabled applications.