From: TEWKSBURY@BUDSGA.BU.EDU (Chip Tewksbury)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Question on charging/billing for VAX use.
Date: 21 Dec 92 15:51:11 GMT
Organization: BOSTON UNIVERSITY, OFFICE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24

In <FD555166C0003867@SCUACC.SCU.EDU> CARL@SCUACC.SCU.EDU writes:

> A quick question... I hope.  Is there any facility or program that is
> distributed with VMS that will perform rudimentary charging for users
> on the VAX?  That is, you can specify a unit rate for cpu time,
> connect time, printer units, disk space, etc. and it generates some
> form of billing report for you.  I know there are commercial programs,
> but I need something that will give me some sort of preliminary
> information in order to decide what sort of revenues might be
> involved.  This will be very helpful in budget justifications on our
> VAX system.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Carl Fussell
> Santa Clara Univ.
> Internet:  carl@scuacc.scu.edu
> Bitnet:    carl@scu
=========================
	Carl,

        You might want to check the DECps Accounting Chargeback (DECps-AC)
        package. (Since you're an institution, you probably get this for no
        cost as part of your CSLG portfolio -- which is the only reason I'm
        recommending it. ;-)

        Note that there are a number of somewhat brain-dead algorithms which
        are used in the calculation of resources:

             1)  Charging per-process resources a flat-rate for ALL process
             classifications.  (I.e., no way to charge different rates for a
             low-priority job versus a "normal" interactive job.)

             2)  Using USAGE.DAT files (generated by ANALYZ/DISK/USAGE) to
             determine disk prices.   On larger systems, this procedure is
             virtually guaranteed to be an unacceptable practice due to the 
             vast amount of disk space needed to store these files.  (I do
             have a work-around for this rather disgusting requirement which
             reduces the requisite disk space to under 100 blocks per disk. 
             Let me know if you want it.)

             3)  No way to selectively charge account categories (i.e., a
             particular uic group, account, etc.) from within DECps-AC.

                Note that both 1) and 3) do have a work-around, in some
                instances, in the form of intermediary ACCOUNTNG and pricing
                files.  But again, it seems a pretty lame approach to
                require these secondary (and tertiary) steps.

             4)  DECps Data Collector as prerequisite software (which is
             only needed during installation, apparently, and not used at
             any other time.)

        On the plus side, it's surprisingly simply to install and the set-up
        is trivial since there's not that much too the software.

	If you're looking for something really basic, which I gather you are
	based on the questions in your original posting, you should find
	DECps-AC....(somewhat) acceptable.

        		Good luck!

                             Chip Tewksbury.

             P.S.  Note that the "problems" with DECps-AC described above
             are associated with V1.0.  I would anticipate (notice I didn't
             say assume :-)  that many of these issues will be resolved in a
             very-near-future release.