The Need for TCO Evaluation

Current technology procurement processes lack a mechanism to evaluate the total cost of ownership (TCO) for software. Factors like automated deployment, upgrade capabilities, auto-scaling, elasticity, multi-cloud abilities, availability of API’s and degree of containerization can all severely impact TCO and affect an agency’s procurement decision. Combined with the requirement that many government solutions must integrate multiple pieces of software within a specific environment, it becomes abundantly clear that the review of software as a single-source solution is inadequate in providing true TCO data.

Agencies often make acquisitions using limited information such as vendor-provided datasheets, requirement matrices, and functional demos. But in an increasingly complex enterprise IT environment, these data points are entirely insufficient to make an informed acquisition decision.

nAbleCloud Labs Dashboard

Setting a New Standard in Transparency

nAbleCloud Labs provides federal agencies with a comprehensive solution for obtaining more complete data to synthesize critical insights about its software acquisitions. Its automated lab allows users to easily provision and manage multi-cloud instances to gain a real-time view into software deployment. Using the nAbleCloud Labs, agencies can conduct more thorough and trustworthy evaluations by having vendors verify their product features in a live environment. A secure evaluation portal lets evaluators review and share assessments in a consistent, controlled, and governed environment.

Product Features

graphic of data tower and the cloud

Agency External

Agency External

The accelerator demonstration lab is cloud-based, external to the Agency, and does not require agency IT support. Government-provided data sets enable free, open, and fair competition between vendors to demonstrate the best value to the government.

image of people representing a hierarchy pyramid

Agnostic Design

Agnostic Design

The accelerator demonstration lab is cloud-agnostic, providing the ability to leverage AWS and Azure in analysis. nAbleLabs is also OS-agnostic, offering users a choice of Windows and various versions of Linux.

image of data cube

Data Access

Data Access

Government personnel can use the lab to review vendor submitted materials, as well as software files, demo configurations, deployment scripts, and log files through either a live viewer or recorded version during evaluation.

Infographic of evaluating different aspects of data

Delivering Total Evaluation Capabilities

nAbleCloud Labs provides the government with the tools to improve federal procurement outcomes in the emerging technology space. Using the automated demonstration lab, agencies can evaluate vendor software for:

  • The ability to run on various clouds (AWS, Azure, GCP) and utilize benefits offered by Cloud and Container technologies
  • Software deployment (level of automation)
  • Requirements for software to run (OS, DB, CPUs)
  • Features and functionality
  • The ability to run within an Agency provided environment
  • The ability to integrate with other selected software