To assign prices to resources for enterprises, create pricing models with prices for VM elements.
Before you begin:
Add your currencies at Pricing → Currencies
Pre-create cost codes at Pricing → Cost codes to assign to resources, for example, hardware profiles or templates
Privileges: Access pricing view, Manage prices, View datacenter details, Manage enterprises
To create a pricing model:
Go to Pricing → Pricing models
To create a new pricing model when there is none assigned to your enterprise, click +add; or
To clone a pricing model, click the copy clone button. The platform will name the new model "PricingModelName (c)".
Note: The platform will assign your user scope to the pricing model and only users with the same scope can edit the pricing model
If your enterprise already has a pricing model, the platform will base the new model on the existing model and enable you to apply a markup/discount to all prices. And you can set new resource prices using the existing prices as a guide.
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Name | The name of your pricing model. The name can represent a service level agreement |
Description | Description of pricing model |
Change all resource prices | Only displays when the enterprise already has a pricing model assigned to it. Resellers can change all prices by adding this percentage. |
Charging period | Standard period of time by which a user will be charged, such as day, week, etc. Does not have to be equal to the minimum period |
Minimum charging period | Minimum period of time that a user will be charged for. This may be longer or shorter than the charging period. This value is not sent to the billing system. Note that the accounting system records the maximum usage value of a resource during an accounting period. |
Currency | The currency for this pricing model. Enter new currencies in the Currency tab before you create the pricing model |
Standing charge | Standing charge per Charging period. You can include this value in the pricing estimate message but the platform does not send it to the billing system |
Minimum charge | Minimum charge per Minimum charging period. You can include this value in the pricing estimate message but the platform does not send it to the billing system |
Show charges before deployment | Mark this checkbox to show a pricing estimate popup before deployment with the message entered in the box at the bottom of the window. See the explanation below |
Insert variable | Choose a variable from the pull-down list to add to the pricing estimate message. The variables are described in the table below |
Deployment message | Enter the estimate message for VM deployment, including variables. See Create a pricing estimate message |
Prices
You can enter general prices for datacenter resources.
Resource prices table
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Currency | The currency for this location (datacenter or public cloud region) |
Hypervisor Datastores GB | Price of hypervisor datastores per gigabyte. In public cloud regions, the platform does not use this value |
Networks | Price per network. (The platform always creates a private network for each virtual datacenter) |
Public IPs | Price per public IP address reserved |
NAT IPs | Price per NAT IP address reserved |
CPU | Price per virtual CPU core for deployed virtual machines. If the location uses hardware profiles, pricing does not use this value. |
CPU on | Price per virtual CPU core when virtual machine is powered ON |
CPU off | Price per virtual CPU core when virtual machine is powered OFF |
Memory (GB) | Price of virtual memory in GB for deployed virtual machine. If the location uses hardware profiles, pricing does not use this value. |
Memory on | Price of virtual memory in GB when virtual machine is powered ON or OFF |
Virtual machine | Fee per VM in addition to charges for other VM items |
Virtual machine on | Fee per VM in addition to charges for other VM items |
Repository (GB) | Price of template repository use in GB for virtual machine templates. The platform does not include conversions. In public cloud regions, the platform does not use this value |
Anti-Affinity | Price per VM deployed in anti-affinity layer. In public cloud regions, the platform does not use this value |
Firewall | Price per firewall attached to VM |
Load balancer | Price per load balancer attached to VM |
The provider can configure billing by usage or allocation.
Datastore tiers
You can set prices for datastore tiers.
In a private cloud datacenter, datastore tiers set service levels for storage. See Manage datastore service levels with datastore tiers.
Persistent storage
In private cloud, you can set prices for the persistent storage tiers. In public cloud regions, the platform automatically imports the storage tiers from the providers so you can price them.
Hardware profiles
You can price hardware profiles in public cloud and in private cloud datacenters with hardware profiles, see Hardware profiles.
The platform can retrieve hardware profile costs from AWS and Azure. See Import hardware profile prices from AWS
In private cloud and VCD, you can also use cost codes for hardware profile pricing. Pricing and billing of dynamic hardware profiles also includes the usage cost of CPU and RAM.
Backup prices
In private cloud datacenters and VCD public cloud regions, you can set prices for backup policies.
When users request a pricing estimate for their virtual appliance, the platform will include the price of the backup policies of each VM.
The platform will also include the price of backup services in the VM_PRICES list.
The platform bills backups with a monthly fixed cost and/or a separate cost for VM disk size in GB (in the platform). For example, if a customer has a VM with 50 GB of hard disk and is using a daily backup policy. If the price for the backup policy is $20 and the price per GB is $1 per GB, the customer will pay $20 + (50 * $1) = $70 per month.
Cost code prices
This tab displays resources and cost codes with their initial prices. You can modify these prices in this new pricing model. The platform will display a warning symbol if you enter a discount of the price in the current pricing model.
Troubleshooting
Access to pricing models
When you create a pricing model, Abiquo automatically assigns the same scope as your user. The Abiquo UI does not display the scope of the pricing model
Users with pricing privileges can always display the pricing model of their own enterprise. Administrators who can switch to another enterprise can display the current pricing model of the enterprise, even if the pricing model has a different scope
To display or manage the pricing model of another enterprise in Pricing view, you must have the same scope as the creator of the pricing model