On premise billing compared to Abiquo billing integration

Abiquo usage metering

Abiquo usage metering

Both billing systems use the same Abiquo accounting services integration for usage metering

Integrated

Separate

Documentation is now in Abiquo infrastructure guide under Abiquo billing. No separate install or server is required. The Abiquo API runs billing and stores data in the Abiquo database.

Hourly billed monthly

Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly

Pricing will still support old accounting periods for old billing with existing pricing models.

Bill for all enterprises with pricing model

Map enterprises/VDCs to accounts with SQL

You can enter account IDs using enterprise properties, or tags for VDCs. You can push enterprise properties to VMs as variables. 

Pricing with new cost codes to support custom usages and new price factors. The upgrade will convert price factors.

Custom usages were created with custom MySQL and price factors were created with enterprise properties.

After you transition to the on-premise billing, you can remove price factors and custom SQL.

In API or DB. Abiquo will introduce cost usage endpoints with reports in a coming version

Output to CSV, or DBMS with CSV generator.

In Abiquo 6.1, you can install or continue to use the Abiquo CSV generator to obtain a CSV file.

Integrated billing dashboards

Private billing module to populate dashboard was installed separately

Before you enable on-premise billing, stop the abiquo-private-billing cron job 

Billing by usage only

Billing by usage or allocation

Billing by allocation was not widely used by customers and will be introduced in a future version

No hypervisor usage

Hypervisor usage

Hypervisor usage is deprecated 

Backup GB by backup size as standard usage for billing for Veeam

Backup GB by VM size with custom billing configuration

The platform now stores Backup GB usage with accounting. For billing, enable the Backup GB usage

New cost code types and cost code units. See Manage extra charges with cost codes and Manage enterprise products.

Custom usage with MySQL

Note: in Abiquo 6.1.0 there is a known issue with one-time cost codes.  

Billing output is in the API logs

Separate logs for com.abiquo.billing

You can configure the same log levels of "DEBUG", "INFO", "WARN", and "ERROR".

Automatic billing of enterprises with pricing model

You needed to configure a job to maintain account mapping for enterprises or VDCs to bill

After you transition to the new billing, you can stop the abiquo-billing-mapping job

Cron job runs billing nightly. It is the same job as for integrated public billing.

Cron job runs billing each week

To configure the cron job to run on-premise billing use an Abiquo property. When you transition to on-premise billing, you can stop the old abiquo-billing cron job 

Regenerate billing for enterprise by clicking button in UI. Abiquo property limits billing generation per enterprise/day

Regenerate billing with a script

The platform generates billing nightly, plus a user can generate once per day by default. You can configure the maximum number of times the user can generate billing with an Abiquo property

Pricing history stores one price per month. The administrator can update the pricing for the month in the UI, which will also regenerate billing. If the administrator does not manually update pricing, new prices will apply in the next month

No pricing history. Billing is regenerated with current prices

In the Pricing view, the button is called Regenerate billing, because it will update prices and regenerate billing for the current month

You can regenerate billing in the user interface for enterprise or selected reseller enterprises. When you edit an enterprise, you can regenerate billing with the button on Billing tab. The process to regenerate billing uses the prices from the pricing history for the month that you are regenerating billing for.

You can regenerate billing manually with a script. The platform regenerates all billing with current prices.

You can select an enterprise or a reseller and/ or their customers to regenerate billing as for public cloud. Note: enter the correct period because if you enter a period with no usage, the platform may generate a standing charge and minimum charge.