VMware VCENTER CHARGEBACK User manual

P R O D U C T D A T A S H E E T / 1
D A T A S H E E T
AT A G L ANCE
VMware vCenter™ Chargeback enables accurate
cost measurement, analysis, and reporting of
virtual machines. With vCenter Chargeback, line-
of-business owners and IT teams can gain visibility
into the actual cost of the virtual infrastructure
required to support business services. vCenter
Chargeback provides the ability to map IT costs to
business units, cost centers, or external
customers—enabling a better understanding of
how much resources cost and what can be done
to optimize resource utilization. vCenter
Chargeback also allows organizations to support
policy-driven accountability for self-service
environments so that business owners can “pay as
they go” for IT resources.
K E Y B E N E F I T S
•Improveresourceutilizationbygainingaccurate
visibility into the true costs of virtualized
workloads.
•Enableline-of-businessownerstohavefull
transparency and accountability for self-service
resource requests.
•Modelinfrastructurecostsinaexiblewaythat
fits organizational processes and policies.
VMware vCenter Chargeback
Gain Cost Visibility and Policy-Driven Accountability
How is vCenter
Chargeback Used?
VMware vCenter Chargeback enables administrators to deliver IT
as a service with a simple, flexible, and accurate chargeback
model. Using vCenter Chargeback, administrators can:
•Create customized cost models and metrics to suit
organizational needs – Flexible cost models allow IT to
measure fixed costs, allocated costs, actual utilization or a mix
of all three, tracking costs by business unit or group.
•Gain accurate visibility over virtualization costs – vCenter
Chargeback captures accurate cost metrics for virtual
environments, giving you insight in to the true costs of
provisioned systems. vCenter Chargeback takes into account
many dierent factors, ranging from hardware costs (CPU,
memory, storage, etc.) to additional elements such as power
and cooling.
•Enable the delivery of IT as a service – vCenter Chargeback
provides a charging foundation for enabling cloud computing.
Used in conjunction with a self-service catalog, business owners
can now have complete transparency into and accountability
for the services they are consuming.
How Does vCenter
Chargeback Work?
A Chargeback Hierarchy Makes it Easy to Manage
Chargeback Models
Administrators create a chargeback hierarchy that provides the
basis for determining cost structures and delivery of reports.
The hierarchy can span multiple vCenter Server instances for
organization-wide chargeback. Cost templates simplify and
standardize the process of adding costs for virtual machines to
the chargeback hierarchy. Any number of cost templates can be
created to support dierent cost structures across the organization.
VMware vCenter Chargeback accurately identifies costs associated with virtual resources
and automatically ties those costs back to the business. Chargeback maintains a database
of cost and usage metrics gathered from vCenter Server, and integrates with VMware
vSphere™ Client to simplify cost configuration.

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VMware vCenter Chargeback
Report Infrastructure Costs Accurately
vCenter Chargeback automatically creates detailed reports that
can be submitted to business units within an organization or used
by IT for decision-making and planning. This provides
organizations a clear view of resources consumed and their
associated costs, eliminating the perception that virtual machines
are “free.” vCenter Chargeback:
•Generatescostreportsthatcanprovidecomparisonofcost
models and resource usage for specified periods of time.
•Allowsforcustomizablereporttemplatesallowreportsthat
contain unique header, footer, logo, title, etc. to fit company or
business unit brand standards.
•Reportsonthemostusedandmostexpensivevirtual
machines, allowing organizations to gain visibility into the
largest contributors to datacenter costs, which in turn makes it
easier to to drive and prioritize eciency eorts.
Drive Accountability in Cloud Environments
Administrators have a key building block for delivering IT as a
service. vCenter Chargeback:
•MeterresourcesmanagedinVMwarevCloudDirector,including
broadband network trac, public IP addresses, and other
servicessuchasDHCP,NAT,andrewalling.
•AutomatecreationofvCloudDirectorchargebackhierarchies
basedonvCloudDirectororganizationvirtualdatacenters
and vApps.
•SupportvCloudDirectorresourcemanagementmodelsand
enables pay-as-you-go, reservation pool, and allocation pool
charging for resources.
Find Out More
For information or to purchase VMware products,
call1-877-4-VMWARE(outsideofNorthAmerica
dial [phone]), visit www.vmware.com/products,
or search online for an authorized reseller. For detailed product
specifications and systems requirements, please refer to the
VMware vCenter Server Chargeback documentation.
Multiple Cost Models Provide Flexibility in
Measuring Costs
vCenter Chargeback supports three dierent cost models:
 Fixedcost–specificpervirtualmachineinstancecosts
suchasfloorspacepowercoolingsoftwareor
administrativeoverhead
 Allocation-basedcosting–Variablecostspervirtual
machinebasedonallocatedresourcessuchastheamount
ofmemoryCPUorstorageallocatedorreservedforthe
virtualmachineinvCenterServer
 Utilization-basedcosting–Variablecostspervirtual
machinebasedonactualresourcesusedincludingaverage
memorydiskandCPUusagenetworkIOanddiskIO
Cost models can be combined in a cost template, making it easy
to start with a simple chargeback model and align with
organizational requirements.
Flexible Cost Accounting Allows Costs To Be
Captured Accurately
Administrators can define base rates associated with metered
elements(e.g.CPU,memory,disk,diskI/OornetworkI/O).Rate
multipliers can be applied to dierent costing models at run-time,
allowing IT organizations to account for use of higher-end
storageorservers,orhigherSLAs(e.g.DRorbackupincluded,
production vs. dev systems). Metered elements that are not
needed can also be easily disabled.
Key Features of
vCenter Chargeback
vCenter Chargeback allows administrators to gain visibility into
infrastructure costs and deliver IT as a service with a simple,
flexible and accurate chargeback model.
Create Customizable Cost Models
Administrators can customize their chargeback model with unique
cost information and flexible cost models. vCenter Chargeback:
•Supportsallocation-basedcosting,utilization-basedcosting,
or a combination of both to fit an organizations unique costing
policies.
•Maintainsreusablecosttemplatesthatallowtheprocessof
adding cost models to VM’s to be standardized.
•Allowsforentryofbasecosts,xedcosts,one-timecosts,
multiple rate factors, and overage fees to model true costs.