Hardware Equipment Cost

For pricing purposes, you can specify the cost for certain ports, cards or chassis within the Hardware Model. Cost data can be set either:

• Globally, by selecting from the main menu Inventory > Hardware Equipment Costs.

• Individually, per device. In the Equipment View for a particular device, select the Logical View tab. Within the Logical View, you may right click on a card and select Modify Properties > Chassis or Modify Properties > Card from the popup menu. The price for that specific Chassis or Card can then be entered into the price field.

• By editing the cardcost file as described in Hardware Equipment Cost File.

The hardware equipment costs window displays the costs of all equipment that has been defined. It allows you to add, modify and delete cards from its list. This list includes per port costs, which are used when no matching cards can be found, as explained above.

Three sets of equipment costs can be defined using this window. They are chassis, card and port costs. Port costs are also used if a particular card is not defined in the equipment costs table.

Figure 1: Hardware Equipment Cost

Note that the initial costs indicated in the Hardware Equipment Cost window are arbitrary values to help you get started. To add an item to the Hardware Equipment Cost window, simply click the Add button, and a new window will popup allowing you to enter the necessary values. To modify an item, select the item and click the Modify button. To delete an item, select the item or multiple items and click the Delete button.

Note that the hardware equipment costs are saved on a per-network base. You may import a custom Hardware Equipment Cost list by clicking the Import button and browsing to the appropriate file.

For cards, the Component Name can be substituted with the Part Number of the card. The Hardware CapEx report will associate the cost of the card to the part number. The Part Number can be found in the Hardware Inventory window Devices or Line Card views.

• If no price is specified in the price field in Equipment View, then the program calculates a default price based on the information in the Hardware Equipment Cost window as follows:

• If the name of the card in Equipment View matches a card name in the Hardware Equipment Cost window, the cost of the card in the Hardware Equipment Cost window is used for the card in Equipment View.

• If no exact match can be found based on card name, then the program will search for a match based on the type and number of ports on the card. If an appropriate card can be found in the Hardware Equipment Cost window that matches the specifications of the card in Equipment View, then the price of that card in the Hardware Equipment Cost window is applied to the card in Equipment View.

• If no appropriate card in the Hardware Equipment Cost window can be found that matches the specifications of the card in Equipment View, then a price based on default per port pricing as defined in the Hardware Equipment Cost window is calculated for the card in Equipment View.

Hardware Equipment Cost File

When you modify or add to the Hardware Equipment Cost window and saves the network, a cardcost.runcode file is created which contains the Hardware Equipment Cost information for that specific network. The cardcost file is referenced from the specification file using the keyword “cardcost” . The format of this file can be used to create a custom file that can be imported into the Hardware Equipment Cost window as described above. Some sample lines along with field descriptions are provided below.

Specific Card Cost

Generic Port Cost

Depending on the format used, the program will recognize the cost as a specific card cost or a generic port cost.