In a virtual datacenter where numerous departments utilize shared resources many organizations are facing the challenge of figuring out what rate to charge users for memory, CPU, storage and network. Also challenging is how to recover costs for other expenses such as administrative fees, software licensing and cooling costs. While most organizations agree that utility based chargeback is the way to go help is desperately needed. VKernel has "cracked the code" and created a chargeback calculator and methodology to solve the chargeback challenge.

The chargeback calculator takes into consideration many variables including; ESX hosts, storage and network devices, all associated costs, number of user departments/cost centers, who is using the resource, profit margins (if needed) and cost recovery timeframe. Automatically, the calculator outputs the rates an organization should be charging per day for memory, CPU, storage and network.

The calculator is designed to be used on an ongoing basis. As changes to an organizations’ infrastructure occur the calculator rolls that information into the existing formula and recalculates the rates.

VKernel is making the calculator and the white paper methodology available to all organizations free of charge. Both can be downloaded at www.vkernel.com.

As organizations move to virtualized production data centers shared by many departments, providing a painless method for monitoring capacity, resource usage and recovering cost is a pressing issue. VMware identifies chargeback as one of the key impediments to growth of virtualization in the data center. Customers simply don’t know how they will justify, pay for and recover the millions of dollars from business users needed to buy new hardware.

VKernel eliminates the pain from the chargeback process. Designed as a "plug and play" virtual appliance, the company’s offering is the first virtual appliance certified by VMware to meter resource usage by departments and automatically generate chargeback and capacity reports. The VKernel virtual appliance requires no installation and becomes operational minutes after downloading.

VKernel tightly integrates with VMware’s Virtual Center and automatically updates itself when changes are made to folders, resource pools and clusters. This integration frees administrators from having to keep the appliance in synch with the virtual environment – a huge savings in time and an enablement for scalability.

VKernel reports on all resources – CPU, Network, Memory, Storage. Additionally, customers can add their own custom fields for chargeback. Costs such as license fees, cooling and electricity are just some examples of what a chargeback report can include.