2.0

A one-time fixed cost is a charge that you want to levy once on an entity for a service provided. For example,
virtual machine provisioning fees. This is a one-time cost that you want to charge for every virtual machine
provisioned. If the time when the fixed cost is applied on an entity falls within the reporting duration, then
the report generated on the entity or its parent includes this cost.
Billing Policy
A billing policy determines the cost types and the amount of chargeable computing resources units to be
considered for calculating the chargeback cost.
vCenter Chargeback Manager provides the various billing policies. Each billing policy only accounts for the
amount of resource consumed, reserved, or allocated during the reporting duration.
Fixed Cost
Only the fixed costs associated with each entity in the chargeback hierarchy is
considered for billing. The actual usage of the chargeable computing resources
is ignored.
Actual Usage
In this policy, the actual utilization of the chargeable computing resources of
the virtual machines is determined. The total cost is then calculated by using
the base rates set in the cost model and the actual used units of the chargeable
computing resources.
Reservation Based
This policy takes into account the capacity of a chargeable resource reserved
for a virtual machine. vCenter Server allows only CPU and memory
reservation. This reserved capacity of CPU and memory along with the actual
utilization of other chargeable computing resources is used for calculating the
total cost.
Allocation Based
This policy takes into account the user-defined allocation units of chargeable
computing resources for the chargeback entities. The allocated units along with
the base rates defined in the cost model is used for calculating the total cost.
CPU Reservation
This policy takes into account the CPU capacity reserved for a virtual machine.
This reserved CPU capacity along with the actual utilization of other
chargeable computing resources is used for calculating the total cost.
Memory Reservation
This policy takes into account the memory capacity reserved for a virtual
machine. This reserved memory capacity along with the actual utilization of
other chargeable computing resources is used for calculating the total cost.
Maximum of Usage and
Reservation
In this policy, the maximum of the used and reserved units of CPU, the
maximum of the used and reserved units of memory, and the actual utilization
of other chargeable computing resources is used for calculating the total cost.
The maximum of usage and reservation is not calculated by comparing the total
used units for the entire reporting duration against the total reserved units for
the entire reporting duration. vCenter Chargeback Manager compares the used
and reserved units for each sample available for the specified reporting
duration to calculate the total units to be charged. The samples are fetched from
the vCenter Server database. vCenter Server provides samples for the following
time slices: 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 2 hours, and 1 day.
vCenter Chargeback Manager uses the largest time slice sample available to
calculate the maximum of used and reserved units. For example, if a report is
generated for a week using this billing policy, then for calculating the total CPU
and memory units to be charged, vCenter Chargeback uses the daily sample
for each day of the week and compares the used units for each day with the
vCenter Chargeback Manager User’s Guide
70 VMware, Inc.