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deepak_ashwath
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Chargeback - vCloud - Allocation Pool Cost Model

Hi All,

I am trying to apply "VMware vCloud Director ALLOCATION POOL cost model" along with VMware vCloud Director ALLOCATION Pool billing policy.

I have VMs under each vDC in my chargeback, and I have given the base rates as

Monthly charges :-

10 USD/GB - for Memory

10 USD/vCPU - for vCPU

2 USD/Storage - for space

Say now I have a VM with the configuration

RAM - 2GB

vCPU - 2

Storage - 20GB

As per the allocation model, I guess the costing for the above VM configuration should come as

RAM = 2GB = 2 x 10 USD = 20 USD

vCPU = 2 = 2x10 USD = 20 USD

Storage = 20 GB = 20 x 2 USD = 40 USD

Total Cost for this VM/month should be 20 +20 + 40 = 100 USD.

But when i chose the cost model and the billing policy as VMware vCloud Director ALLOCATION POOL cost model and VMware vCloud Director ALLOCATION Pool billing policy, I am not getting the result...

Does anyone have any idea how to arrive at the result I am looking for, is there any other way ??

Please suggest.

Thanks

Deepak

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8 Replies
amrainders
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Deepak,

Are you generating report at VM level or VDC level?

Cost is coming incorrect of all the counters (vCPU, memory, storage) or one of the counter?

Another factor to keep in mind, in cost reports the cost will be applied from the time when entity (VM or VDC) is created.

-Amrainder

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deepak_ashwath
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Yes, I am generating the report at VDC level.

The VDC has been created a month ago.

Have you used "Allocation Pool Cost Model" any time ?

It gives you options like per GB ? or per vCPU ? , these values are defined by the user but they dont MAP to the VMs or VMs under VDC properly and hence charging is coming incorrect

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amrainders
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Deepak,

Yes I have used  Allocation Pool cost model earlier.

Will it be possible for you to attach the report which you think is incorrect. I can have a look and may be able to help you.

Moreover I did not understand the below line can you please elaborate.

It gives you options like per GB ? or per vCPU ? , these values are defined by the user but they dont MAP to the VMs or VMs under VDC properly and hence charging is coming incorrect

-Amrainder

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deepak_ashwath
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Ok to give more insight, I have attached the images below.

In cb1 image you can see, I have selected Allocation based cost model

In cb2 Billing policy is Allocation Based

In cb3, I have checked Overage and defined a $ value i.e. 10 USD/ GB for memory and 5 USD/vCPU for vCPU, but after entering these values and saving them doesnt save the values.

Now when I apply the above defined cost model to a VDC, for all VMs I get 0 USD

For a VM with 2GB Mem and 4vCPU costing should come as = (2X10) + (5X4) = 40 USD

Can anyone tell me whether I have missed anything Or any other way to configure Allocation based cost model

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amrainders
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Deepak,

Sorry for delay in replying.

Few points to be noted:-

  1. For "Reservation Pool" and "Allocation Pool" resource management models of vCloud Director the whole org-VDC is sold as a chunk of capacity, the idea is to charge at the org-VDC level and not at individual VM level. Hence vCloud Director data collector running in vCenter chargeback sets allocations for CPU, memory and storage at org-VDC for Reservation and Allocation pool org-VDCs. Charging for individual VMs will be more appropriate in case of "Pay as you go" type of org-VDCs.
  2. To charge for "Reservation Pool" and "Allocation Pool" type of org-VDCs, no need to set overage rates. Just set the normal base rates for CPU (not vCPU because vCPU is at VM level and CPU is at org-VDC level), memory and storage and the cost report should come fine.
  3. In case of "Allocation Pool" org-VDCs charging beyond the configured capacity (burst) of the VDC is not supported.
  4. I will try to explain how overage works in vCenter Chargeback. For overage the usage is compared with allocation set and for usage above the configured allocation value the overage rate is applied. For example, Let us assume that for memory you have defined overage rates as $5 per GB (Monthly) upto allocation and $8 per GB (Monthly) beyond allocation and the memory usage of the VM is 1.5 GB for month of Feb 2011 and you have configured the memory allocation on VM as 1 GB, then for month of February 2011 this VM will be charged at $5 for first 1 GB of memory and $8 for 0.5 GB (usage beyond configured allocation of 1 GB) of memory. So the total cost for memory will be 1*5+0.5*8=$9.

I hope this helps.

-Amrainder

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amrainders
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Forgot to add one thing, for overage because usage is compared with allocation the selected billing policy should be usage based and not allocation based (as it was in your case).

Thanks,

Amrainder

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deepak_ashwath
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi Amrainder,

You have mentioned a 4th point, I am trying to achieve the same but the settings are not taking the overage value.

Can you brief on the steps in the Chargeback to get the result what you have mentioned in the 4th step. I am trying to do the same.

" I just want to charge a VM based on THE amount of vCPU, Memory and Storage allocated, I dont care what model I opt for"

I have already tried with the 4th point but the billing is not working at the org vDC level, please tell me the billing policy, cost model that I should opt for to achieve the result like you have mentioned in 4th point for a VM

Thanks,

Deepak

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amrainders
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Deepak,

The overage will not work for allocation pool org-vdc. I will try to explain why.

In VCD If you create a org-vdc of type allocation pool "A" with memory of 10 GB at 50% guaranteed, this means that 5 GB of memory is reserved for org-vdc "A" and if available the this org-vdc can consume maximum up to 10GB of memory.

The VCD data collector in chargeback, sets allocation for memory as 10GB for org-vdc "A" (corresponding to 10GB memory setting of org-vdc "A" in VCD). Now the overage will kick in only if memory usage of VMs in org-vdc "A" goes beyond 10 GB (the allocation set on org-vdc "A"). But the memory usage for org-vdc "A" will always be less than 10 GB (because of memory setting of 10GB for org-vdc "A" in VCD), hence overage will never happen.

If you want to try overage use case, you can try it in non VDC chargeback hierarchy (chargeback hierarchy directly created out of VC).

You can also try this on "Pay as you go" org-vdc by manually setting the allocation from chargeback UI. Please note that in case of "Pay as you go" org-vdc there is no memory setting in VCD hence no allocation set for memory by VCD data collector in chargeback.

Also, as pointed out in a previous comment, please use a usage based billing policy for overage.

-Amrainder

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