The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of Cloud-based Workstation Infrastructure
Enabling Agile, Scalable Infrastructure for Creative & Technical Workstation Compute
In today’s environment of fast-changing project demands, hybrid workforces, and financial scrutiny, CIOs and department leaders in creative and technical sectors are being challenged to rethink legacy infrastructure strategies. Whether you're overseeing a DCC pipeline, product development team, energy exploration, or research/education labs, the ability to scale, control costs, and enable future-proof performance is no longer a luxury, it’s a business imperative.
A detailed TCO analysis provides clear evidence that modern cloud-based workstation and storage infrastructure delivers measurable cost savings and operational agility over traditional on-premise deployments. Below, we explore the tangible and intangible benefits of transitioning from on-premise setups to cloud (or hybrid-cloud) workstations and storage, based on the real-world use cases of Arch Platform customers.
Please note: the Arch Platform supports cloud and hybrid-cloud access to workstations through a single-pane-of-glass portal.
📉 Tangible Cost Reductions at Every Scale
A detailed TCO analysis comparing a traditional on-premise type II data center setup to an AWS + Arch Platform cloud model for middling 3D workstations reveals a monthly savings per workstation as the scale increases:
Workstations
On-premise Cost/Month
Arch+AWS Cost/Month/WS
Monthly Savings
50
$19,550 ($391 ea.)
$19,350 ($387 ea.)
$200+
100
$39,100 ($391 ea.)
$36,200 ($362 ea.)
$2,900+
1,000
$391,000 ($391 ea.)
$340,000 ($340 ea.)
$51,000+
These savings represent 2% to 13+% lower monthly operating expenses per workstation when using cloud infrastructure. Savings accrue from avoiding real estate, power, cooling, data center, and software stack costs. There are other benefits such as mitigating upfront hardware investments, deployment complexities and time, and long depreciation cycles. Additionally, Arch+AWS cloud customers save tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars from reduced team schedule delays related to end-user up-time.
⚖️ TCO Assumptions
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Data center type II energy cost/workstation per month: $8
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Data center type II cooling cost/workstation per month: $8
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Data center type II real estate cost/workstation per month: $26
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Data center cost/workstation: $4,500, 36 month depreciation, monthly: $125
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Data center type II amortized infrastructure/workstation: $149/mo.
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Data center software stack cost/workstation per month: $10
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Data center type II burden rate: 20%
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AWS comparable workstation: G6.4XL Linux on-demand price (e.g. Oregon, USA)
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AWS customer discount: 10%
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AWS workstation usage: 8 hours per work day per workstation
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Arch Platform monthly plan, standard pricing
🧩 Strategic & Operational Benefits
✅ Elastic Scalability
In industries with project-based cycles like game development, VFX, architectural design, product development, or energy/utilities, compute and storage demands are rarely static. Cloud platforms allow teams to scale resources up or down quickly, eliminating the need to over-provision or maintain underutilized infrastructure.
✅ Faster Deployment & Agility
A full cloud-based data center (Virtual Private Cloud) can be deployed in about one hour and fully provisioned workstations in minutes. Compare that with weeks or months of lead time for on-prem hardware procurement, configuration, and deployment. Creative and engineering departments can meet tight deadlines and take on more projects without infrastructure bottlenecks.
✅ Anywhere Workforce Enablement
With support for leading remote desktop protocols (Amazon DCV, HP Anyware, Parsec) and Arch’s integrated broker, your teams can deliver full-performance work from the office or remote locations, reducing geographic talent constraints and improving business continuity.
✅ Resource Optimization
Cloud platforms eliminate idle hardware cycles. Each virtual workstation can be precisely matched to the task, whether that’s 3D rendering, simulation, CAD design, or scientific modeling, resulting in workflow-optimized resource use and better ROI on compute spend.
✅ Reduced IT Overhead
By shifting infrastructure management to the cloud, internal IT and DevOps teams can focus on strategic initiatives instead of maintenance and firefighting. Arch customers save up to 90% of their time on workstation infrastructure overhead.
Why Cloud is Winning Across Workstation Use-cases
🎬 Media & Entertainment
Studios can handle rendering bursts, remote collaboration, and global production pipelines, eliminating shipping hardware or building physical render farms.
🏗️ Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC)
Teams can visualize, access BIM tools, and collaborate on large models from anywhere using GPU-powered instances.
🛠 Product Development | Energy & Utilities
Enable secure, high-performance collaboration across distributed design, engineering, and quality/test/safety teams.
🧬 Scientific Research
Researchers can scale compute for simulation and modeling on-demand on the same backbone as HPC infrastructure, accessing resources otherwise unaffordable on local infrastructure.
🎓 Education
Institutions can provide access to high-performance tools for students and faculty remotely, without needing physical labs—enhancing equity while scaling for each semester’s specific requirements.
🧠 Strategic Takeaway
CIOs and department heads seeking a flexible, efficient, and scalable workstation infrastructure should view cloud as more than just an IT decision. It’s a strategic enabler of organizational agility. The cost savings are real. The operational benefits are transformative.
Cloud platforms like Arch + AWS empower leaders to build responsive, hybrid-ready technology environments that align with evolving business needs, without being locked into hardware depreciation cycles or geographic limitations.
