VMware vCenter chargeback

It might be that I am doing the Vmware VCP course this week, or it might be a nagging feeling at the back of my brain, but something is driving me to look again at VMware’s vCenter chargeback.

I’ve struggled for a while with enterprise management without an effective way to regulate the consumption of resources (as Virtual Machines) by the business. The logical, and obvious, way to do this is though some sort of billing mechanism where each department “pays” for their usage on a periodic basis. Generating the real costs is actually quite difficult so relative costs are where I will start before trying to get them as accurate as is appropriate.

vCenter chargeback should accomplish this, and do so in real time, by querying the vCenter control server and recording the results.

Anyway should be interesting and hopefully not as soul destroying as the last time I tried it…..