Chargeback

The Chargeback dashboard includes the utilization, reporting, and chargeback data from the Infrastructure Automation – Infrastructure Management component.

You can use the dashboard to view and manage chargeback cost. The chargeback feature provides the way to calculate monetary virtual machine charges based on owner or company tag. Access the Chargeback dashboard by browsing to the menu, click Manage costs > Chargeback

Tags

With Infrastructure Management, you can create your own set of tags and tag categories. You can use tags to create a customized, searchable index for your resources. After you create these values, you can apply them to your resources.

Company Tag Categories and Tags

Infrastructure Management provides two types of tags. Company tags and System tags.

Company tags that you see under My Company Tags for a resource.

  1. Create company tags from the console by browsing to the menu, click Automate infrastructure > Infrastructure management
  2. Click Settings, then click Application Settings.
  3. Select the region: Region and click the Tags tab.
  4. Select the My Company Tags tab.

A selection of company tags is provided to you by default as samples. Tags can be deleted if you don't need them, but are not re-created by Infrastructure Management.

System tags are assigned automatically by Infrastructure Management.

For more information, see Tags.

Chargeback Rates

Infrastructure Management provides a default set of rates for calculating chargeback costs.

You can configure chargeback rates for various resources by selecting either Compute or Storage in the Rates tab. Compute sets chargeback rates for CPU, disk I/O, fixed compute cost, memory, and network I/O items. Storage sets chargeback rates for fixed storage costs and disk storage.

Chargeback costs are computed by using a set formula based on hourly cost per unit and hourly usage.

Chargeback can be calculated in many currencies.

Chargeback rates can be assigned at a single rate or by tiers, where rates are assigned in ranges that depend on the level of usage.

Creating Chargeback Rates

Infrastructure Management provides the capability to create your own set of computing and storage costs to use for billing.

Chargeback can be calculated at one fixed rate, or by a combination of fixed and variable rates per tier. Fixed rates are charged once per unit of time. The variable rate is calculated by the level of usage that is multiplied by the number of resources that are used in a unit of time.

Adding a Chargeback Rate

The following example shows a scenario to create a new chargeback rate for allocated CPU usage in Euro per week measured by the following tiers, calculating both fixed and variable costs:

  • Tier 1: 0-2 CPU = 1 Euro fixed + 0.5 Euro variable
  • Tier 2: 2-4 CPU = 0.8 Euro fixed + 0.4 Euro variable
  • Tier 3: 4 CPU or more = 0.6 Euro fixed + 0.2 Euro variable

To configure this rate:

  1. Browse to the menu, click Manage costs > Chargeback.

  2. Click the Rates tab, then click New rate. The Infrastructure Management is launched in a new browser tab.

    Note: You can also navigate to Chargeback rates from the Infrastructure Management tab if it is already launched by selecting, Overview > Chargeback > Rates. Select Configuration > Add a new Chargeback Rate.

  3. Enter a Description for the chargeback rate.

  4. Confirm that the Type is set to Compute.

  5. Select the currency for the new rate. For example, Euro.

  6. In Rate Details, select the time, and complete the range and rates for each tier. Optionally, a single chargeback rate can be configured by using only one tier. For this example, in Allocated CPU Count, configure:

    1. For tier 1, set:

      1. In Per Time, select Hourly.

      2. In Range, specify the CPU range: Start remains as 0.0 and Finish is 2.

      3. In Rate, specify 1 for the Fixed rate, and 0.5 for the Variable rate.

      4. Click Add under Actions to create a new, blank Allocated CPU Count line for tier 2.

    2. For tier 2, set:

      1. In the new line in Range, specify the CPU range: Start is 2 and Finish is 4.

      2. In Rate, specify 0.8 for the Fixed rate, and 0.4 for the Variable rate.

      3. Click Add under Actions to create another new, blank Allocated CPU Count line for tier 3.

    3. For tier 3, set:

      1. In the new line in Range, specify the CPU range: Start is 4 and leave Finish as Infinity.

      2. In Rate, specify 0.6 for the Fixed rate, and 0.2 for Variable.

        tiered chargeback
        Tiered chargeback

  7. Click Add to save the chargeback rate.

The rate can now be assigned.

For more information, see Chargeback Rates.

Chargeback assignments

Compute rates can be assigned to

  • The enterprise
  • Selected clusters
  • Selected providers
  • Tagged VMs and instances
  • Tenants

Storage rates can be assigned to

  • The enterprise
  • Selected datastores
  • Tagged datastores
  • Tenants

Infrastructure Management provides you with the capability to assign chargeback rates by choosing from Compute and Storage. You can assign either a custom chargeback rate, or a default rate for Compute, Storage, or Container Images.

Note: The Default Container Image Rate can be useful when applied to a container provider with multiple images, where only some of the images have a chargeback rate assigned. The images without a custom rate use the default rate.

  1. Browse to the menu, click Manage costs > Chargeback.

  2. Click the Assignments tab, then click Create assignments. The Infrastructure Management component is called.

  3. From the Chargeback Assignments menu, click Compute or Storage.

Configuring Chargeback for Compute

Use Compute to assign a compute chargeback rate. You can assign chargeback rates to The Enterprise, Selected Providers, Selected Clusters, Tagged VMs and Instances, Tagged Configured Systems, Tagged Images, Labeled Images, or Tenants.

  1. From the Selections area, choose each item to set, select the chargeback rate to use. The options that are displayed vary based on the type you select.

  2. For Tagged VMs and Instances and Tagged Images select a Tag Category.

  3. Click Save.

Configuring Chargeback for Storage

Use Storage to assign a storage chargeback rate. You can assign chargeback rates to The Enterprise, Selected Datastores, Tagged Datastores, or Tenants.

  1. From the Selections area, choose each item to set, select the chargeback rate to use. The options that are displayed vary based on the type you select.

  2. For Tagged Datastores, select a Tag Category.

  3. Click Save.

The rate is assigned. The next time that you generate a chargeback report, these values will be used.

Note: When you view chargeback, you see a rate for a virtual machine for the number of the CPUs. The chargeback for this parameter is calculated based on when the virtual machine is running. If the virtual machine isn't running, then it is not charged for CPU allocation.

For more information, see Assigning Chargeback Rates.

Chargeback Reports

Prerequisites for running chargeback reports

  1. Enable Capacity & Utilization Collection and Metric Workers

    1. Browse to the menu, click Automate infrastructure > Infrastructure management.
    2. Click Settings, then click Application Settings.
    3. Click Settings > Current Region, then click the C & U Collection tab.
    4. Metrics data is needed to generate chargeback reports. It is required to enable collecting metrics data. You can select individual cluster(s), datastore(s) or select all clusters and datastores.
    5. Click Save.

  2. Set Server Roles

    1. Browse to the menu, click Automate infrastructure > Infrastructure management.
    2. Click Settings, then click Application Settings.
    3. Click Settings > Current Region, then in the tree select Zones > Current Zone > Current Server.
    4. In the Server Control section turn on the required server roles to get metric data for chargeback reports:
      • Capacity & Utilization Coordinator
      • Capacity & Utilization Data Collector
      • Capacity & Utilization Data Processor

  3. Set Assignments

    1. See Chargeback Assignments
    2. Assign rates to a specific scope of resources (The Enterprise, Selected Providers,...). All resources (VMs,...) have an assigned rate when you select The Enterprise (for Compute and Storage) in the Assigned To selection box.

  4. Set Chargeback Filters on chargeback reports

    Filters on chargeback reports must match resources to see any results on the report result. Setting of the filters affects the scope of resources taken into account for chargeback report generation. You can display all resources (VMs,...) on the report result by setting Show Costs by to tenant and Tenant to My Company in the Chargeback Filter section. When creating reports, click the Filter tab to set filters for the data displayed in the report.

Chargeback Reports can be generated based on:

  • Allocation
  • Utilization

Creating a Chargeback Report

Infrastructure Management provides you with the capability to create chargeback reports to monitor costs.

Note: When you create a chargeback report, the Total Cost is the complete cost for the chosen workload over the selected time frame. Total costs are calculated by adding the calculated costs for the amount that is used and the amount that is allocated for the time frame. When you add cost-related columns to display on your report, be sure to select all rate assigned fields to present a comprehensive accounting of total costs.

  1. Browse to the menu, click Manage costs > Chargeback.

  2. Select the Reports tab, then click Create reports or New report.

    The Infrastructure Management is launched in a new browser tab.

  3. From the Infrastructure Management, select the Overview > Reports.

  4. Click Reports accordion, then select Configuration and click Add a new Report.

  5. On the Columns tab, complete the Basic Report Info area.

    • Type a unique name in Menu Name for how you want the report to be named in the menu list.

    • Type the Title to display on the report.

  6. Add fields in the Configure Report Columns area.

    • From the Base the report on list, select Chargeback for Vms, Chargeback for Configured Systems, Containers, or any other object.

    • Select the fields to include in the report from the Available Fields list, then click Move selected fields down. Also, you can select any tags that you created and assigned.

    • Change the order of the fields in the report by clicking Move up selected fields or Move down selected fields.

  7. Click the Formatting tab to set the size of paper for a PDF and column header format.

    • From the PDF Output area, select the page size from the Page Size list.

    • From Specify Column Headers and Formats, type the text to display for each field. For each numeric field, you can also set the numeric format.

  8. Click the Filter tab to set filters for the data displayed in the report.

    • From Chargeback Filters, select how you want the costs to show, the tag category, the tags, and how you want the items to be grouped. Note: You can select multiple tags.

    • From Chargeback Interval, select the time interval. You must have a full interval worth of data to select an option other than Partial in the Daily Ending With list.

  9. Click the Preview tab, and then Load to see how the report appears.

  10. When you're satisfied with the report, click Add to create the new report.

The new report is created. To make the report accessible from the Report menu, you must add it to a report menu.

For more information, see Creating a Chargeback Report.

Running Reports

Generating a Single Report

  1. Browse to the menu, click Manage costs > Chargeback.

  2. Select the Reports tab, and then click the report name in the Reports section.

  3. Click Run report to generate the report.

Infrastructure Management uses interactive report generation so that reports are placed on a queue. A visual indicator of the reports status is shown. All reports are automatically saved so that they can be downloaded and analyzed later.

Viewing Reports

Once you have run a report, you can view it at any time after the report has been generated.

  1. Browse to the menu, click Manage costs > Chargeback.

  2. Select the Reports tab, and then click the report name in the Reports section.

  3. From the Saved Reports, click the report Last run entry under the Saved Reports to view the report details.

Note: From the report details you can click the column headings to sort the details by value.

Exporting Reports

  1. Browse to the menu, click Manage costs > Chargeback.

  2. Select the Reports tab, and then click the report name in the Reports section.

  3. From the Saved Reports, click the report Last run entry under the Saved Reports to view the report details.

  4. Click Export Report and select Download as Text or Download as CSV.