Service Accounting (Chargeback) Drivers
When DataSynapse GridServer manages the sharing of resources across grids, the result can be increased efficiencies, business agility and reduced costs. Often, the decision to launch additional new services will only occur when the savings can be passed on directly through chargebacks – with the tipping point being the institution of a utility operating model, where well-defined and measured services are shared between business units.
Evident ClearStone: DataSynapse GridServer Accounting
Evident ClearStone provides Service Accounting capabilities that allow customers to implement cost accounting, including full chargeback, for shared services running on a grid utility, such as DataSynapse GridServer. In heterogeneous grids, the ability to charge for the time consumed by various services eases the adoption a shared utility and helps realize the economies of scale from more fully utilized resources.
The Evident ClearStone Service Accounting capabilities use the measurement of “elapsed time” for tasks executed on engines as the metric that reflects how much compute resources were used by a specific service running on the grid. Evident ClearStone for DataSynapse GridServer automatically aggregates the elapse task time for all tasks associated with a specific service and at the same time apply different rates (costs per unit of time) based on the engines category used to execute the tasks. For example, engine configurations could fall into the following categories:
- Dedicated Servers –physical servers within the data centers that are dedicated to the grid infrastructure. These servers are intended only for the computations needs of grid services. These servers don’t typically run any other applications and may command higher chargeback rates for tasks running within this dedicated environment.
- Scavenged Servers – these are physical servers within the data centers that are normally running other applications, but can also be used as grid engines within the broader compute grid when they have available CPU capacity. This type of resource can be priced at a lower cost than the dedicated servers.
- Harvested Desktops –general-purpose desktops that join the grid as engines available to process service tasks when they have free processing capacity to “donate” CPU resources to the grid. These engines tend to be more dynamic and typically join/leave the grid based on user workstation activity and would likely have the lowest rate/cost than either dedicated or scavenged servers within the grid.
The Evident ClearStone Service Accounting solution for the compute grid support the following capabilities:
- Ability to charge based on the elapsed time of task on an engine by service
- Support for multiple rate classes for different types of engine configurations
- Support for on-demand bill execution
- Generation of cross-chargeback summary and detailed reports
ClearStone for DataSynapse GridServer generates both summary reports and detailed reports, as shown below.
ClearStone for DataSynapse GridServer generates a report summarizing DataSynapse GridServer chargeback data.
ClearStone for DataSynapse GridServer generates detailed reports about grid application chargebacks.
