Panelists: Kevin Leahy, IBM Director of Virtualization
Alan Murray, Novell VP of Product Management
Serguei Beloussov, SWsoft Chairman and CEO
Roundtable Information:
Virtual Strategy Magazine is pleased to continue the VSM Roundtable Series where our members and readers can have their questions answered. The topic this month is "Chargeback and Other Virtualization Management Issues."
This months roundtable will be lead by Brian Ducharme, Managing Editor of VSM.
Roundtable 002 Podcast Summary:
Length: 47:56
Introduction
Q: When our company finishes its virtualization project, should we expect lower management costs? What management challenges should I be aware of? (01:32)
A: Kevin Leahy of IBM answers – Did you plan to have lower costs when you started the project? Management strategies implemented with a virtualization strategy can dramatically reduced costs. (01:48)
A: Alan Murray of Novell adds – Cost structure may differ for high availability or high scale out installations. Regulatory and compliance issues can compound management challenges (03:49)
A: Serguei Beloussov of SWsoft: Adds few points on; splitting upfront costs, Some management tools are not available for virtual machines, automation in the datacenter, other challenges (05:10)
Q: What are the advantages of charging back? (09:50)
A: Serguei, SWsoft: Chargeback is mandatory for efficiency (10:06)
A: Alan Murray, Novell: Chargeback can also be used methodology for capacity planning (11:16)
A: Kevin, IBM: Examine the information, Different chargeback models; usage and accounting; being fair and equitable; dynamic chargeback model (12:09)
Q: What costs can be charged back, Floor space, power, cooling, time and/or upgrades? (14:42)
A: Alan Murray, Novell: Any operation that can be conceived can be charged back. (14:48)
A: Serguei, SWsoft: Among service providers chargeback is absolute, he finds simple chargeback models work better. Service plans can be implemented (15:58)
A: Kevin, IBM: The more you can align the resources with your business possesses, the better. Power and cooling costs as an example (18:20)
Q: What tools are available for datacenter cost recovery? What are the best practices for using them? (20:10)
A: Serguei, SWsoft: Datacenter Automation Suite is SWsoft’s tool for Virtuosso and other software (20:22)
A: Kevin, IBM: About Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager; accounting methods vs. collection methods; tying chargeback into your accounting; Best practices. (20:22)
A: Alan, Novell: Best practices, it is important to understand the value of critical processes and how they fit together as a service. The role of enforcement (24:14)
Q:What are best practices for Service Pricing? For example, in a usage based recovery model, how can one best determine the metric to use to chargeback and the cost for that metric? (ie: metric = CPU, GB disk , etc).
(26:40)
A: Serguei, SWsoft: Flat rate models (27:17)
A: Kevin, IBM: Billing for consumption beyond base (28:54)
Q: What are the differences between asset based and storage based models (31:02)
A: Serguei, SWsoft: Storage is an asset, it all can be costed (32:16)
