So, the cloud environment is up and running. The organizations are created and vApps populated with virtual machines. The next question that arises is how to determine the resource utilization and how to calculate the costs for virtual machines that use resources in the cloud. The VMware vCloud Suite includes the vCenter Chargeback Manager which is suited for the job. Before we begin with the preparation, installation and configuration of vCenter Chargeback Manager, let’s first define what vCenter Chargeback Manager actually is and what it does.

Chargeback is a mechanism to account for the operational costs involved in providing and maintaining an IT infrastructure, including the costs for IT services and applications. Measuring resource utilization and calculating the corresponding IT operational cost enables you to account for the IT resources utilized and bill for the services provided.

Source: VMware vCenter Chargeback Manager Installation and Upgrade Guide

Before the installation of vCenter Chargeback Manager, a database and a database user account needs to be created first.

Create Database

In this case I’ll be using my dedicated Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2.

1. Open the SQL Server Management Studio and connect.
2. Right click the Databases and select New Database.
3. Enter the database name, for example vCCM_DB and click OK to create it.
4. Next, create a database user account. Expand the Security and right click Logins. Select New Login and enter a login name, for example vCCM_user.
5. Change the authentication to SQL Server and enter a password.
6. Also, change the default database to the database created in step 3, in my case, vCCM_DB.
7. Next, select User Mapping and change the default schema to DBO.
8. Click OK.

Assign User Privileges

After you create a database and a database user in SQL Server that vCenter Chargeback Manager can use, you must assign privileges to this user by running the following query.

You can verify if the role is created by browsing to the vCCM_DB database, expand Security, expand Roles and expand Database Roles.

There is also a vCenter Chargeback Manager Database Size Calculator available from VMware vCenter Chargeback Documentation to calculate the estimated database size.

Configure Firewall

The vCenter Chargeback Manager uses ports 443, 8009 and 8080 to communicate with its components. Open the ports on the Windows firewall to prevent any connection errors after the installation.

1. Open port 443 TCP Inbound. This port is used by the load balancer to listen for user requests.
2. Open port 8009 TCP Inbound. This port is used by vCenter Chargeback Manager to communicate with the load balancer.
3. Open port 8080 TCP Inbound. This port is used by vCenter Chargeback Manager for communication using the HTTP protocol.

This concludes a rather simple preparation for the vCenter Chargeback Manager. Continue to part 11 where we will install and configure the vCenter Chargeback Manager on a Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machine.

Cheers!

– Marek.Z

• vCloud Suite POC Part 1: Introduction
• vCloud Suite POC Part 2: Installing vCloud Director Cell
• vCloud Suite POC Part 3: vCloud Director Configuration
• vCloud Suite POC Part 4: Creating a new Provider vDC
• vCloud Suite POC Part 5: Creating new Organization
• vCloud Suite POC Part 6: Add and Publish Catalogs
• vCloud Suite POC Part 7: Create New vApp
• vCloud Suite POC Part 8: Add vCloud Connector
• vCloud Suite POC Part 9: Move VM to the Cloud