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Table Of Contents
- vCenter Chargeback Manager User’s Guide
- Contents
- About the User's Guide
- Introduction to vCenter Chargeback Manager
- Configuring Administration Settings
- Authenticating and Managing Users, Roles, and Permissions
- Resource Based Authorization in vCenter Chargeback Manager
- Permissions Defined in vCenter Chargeback Manager
- Managing Roles
- Managing Users
- vCenter Chargeback Manager User Authentication
- Managing Chargeback Hierarchies
- Creating a Chargeback Hierarchy
- Managing a Chargeback Hierarchy
- View a Chargeback Hierarchy
- Add a vCenter Chargeback Manager Entity
- Add a vCenter Server Entity
- Rename a Chargeback Hierarchy or a Chargeback Entity
- Delete an Entity from the Hierarchy
- Delete a Chargeback Hierarchy
- Assign Attributes
- Move Entities Within a Hierarchy
- Allocate Computing Resource Units for a Chargeback Entity
- Share Virtual Machine Cost
- Backdate a Chargeback Hierarchy
- View Properties of a vCenter Server Entity
- Managing and Configuring vCenter Chargeback Manager Cost Elements
- Generating Reports
- Monitoring System Health
- Administration Utilities
- Index
A chargeback solution for a virtual environment defines a hierarchy with different types of entities such as
departments, divisions, business units, cost centers, physical servers, virtual machines, and so on. For each
entity type, a cost model is defined that determines the rate for each unit of a resource utilized. The chargeback
solution determines the resource usage by using either utilization-based metering or allocation-based metering
of virtual machines. The metered parameters are then associated with the designated entities, and the cost
model defined for that entity along with specific chargeback formulas are used as part of the overall chargeback
solution.
Overview of vCenter Chargeback Manager
Determining the resource utilization and calculating the corresponding cost for a virtual environment that uses
VMware vSphere typically involves VMware professional services’ work or use of partner solutions. These
solutions are built using custom methods for VMware vSphere resource data collection and chargeback cost
calculation for organizations.
vCenter Chargeback Manager is an end-to-end cost reporting solution for virtual environments that use
VMware vSphere. This Web-based application interacts with the vCenter Server Database to retrieve usage
information, calculates the cost by using the defined chargeback formulas, and generates cost and usage
reports. Figure 1-1 shows how vCenter Chargeback Manager interacts with various components of a virtual
environment using VMware vSphere.
Figure 1-1. vCenter Chargeback Manager in a Virtual Environment
JDBC
vCenter Chargeback
Manager
Load Balancer
vCenter Server
Data Collector
vCenter
Chargeback
Manager
database
vCenter Chargeback
Manager UI
vCenter
Server
database
ESXi
host03
ESXi
host02
ESXi
host01
VIM API
vCenter Chargeback Manager runs on an Apache Tomcat server instance. Users interact with vCenter
Chargeback Manager through a load balancer (Apache HTTP Server). vCenter Chargeback Manager connects
to the vCenter Chargeback Manager database that stores application-specific information, such as the defined
chargeback hierarchies, cost models, users, roles, and so on. The application interacts with the vCenter Server
using VIM APIs and with the vCenter Server database through a data collector. The data collector
communicates with the vCenter Server Database using JDBC.
vCenter Chargeback Manager User’s Guide
8 VMware, Inc.