Creating chargeback reports

Create chargeback reports that show how much capacity is used and the cost of the capacity that is used by applications, departments, and physical servers.

About this task

Chargeback reports help managers to realize the cost of the storage that they use, plan storage usage more efficiently, and reduce storage costs. For example, a manager gets a chargeback report that shows that the bulk of the storage that is used by a non-critical application is on tier-1. To reduce storage costs and use storage more efficiently, the manager can request the storage administrator to use tier-2 or lower tiers of storage for the application's data.

Procedure

  1. Click Reports, and then click Create Report.
  2. In the Summary Reports pane, click Chargeback.
  3. Type the unique name of the report, and enter the delivery and the scheduling details.
  4. Choose the type of storage consumer from the list.
    If you choose Physical Server, the capacity and cost of the physical servers that belong to clusters are listed under the name of the cluster.
  5. Choose how you want to calculate the capacity and cost of thin-provisioned storage.
  6. Choose the unit of capacity measurement that you want to use in the report.
    Tip: To make sure that the recipients of the report get the report that they want, check the report preview.
  7. Choose whether you want to use default or customized costs for block and file storage.
    To change the default costs for block and file storage, click the lock (lock icon) icon.
  8. Choose the types of storage that you want to include in the report.
  9. Set the unit costs for the storage that is used.
    To get a complete picture of the capacity and cost of the block storage, include the cost of the data that is copied.
  10. Click Save.
    If you set the frequency of the report to Now, you click Save and Send.

Results

The report is saved and, depending on the scheduling option, the report is sent to the recipients or scheduled to be sent later. If you want to change the configuration of the report, click Reports, select the report, and then click Edit.
Tip: You want to send a scheduled report now, but you don't want to change the original schedule? Click Reports > Reports. Select the report, and click Actions > Run Now. The report is sent without changing the original schedule.