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Creating Cost Meter Cards

To see the value of your on-prem storage and compute resources, you first need to create a Cost Meter Card. You can create Cost Meter Cards using the following methods:

  • Manual Creation: You can manually create Cost Meter Cards by selecting and filling in the required fields. Manually created Cost Meter Cards are displayed alongside other existing Cost Meter Cards.

  • Uploading a JSON File: Perform the following steps to upload the JSON file:

    1. Download the Sample JSON file for the Cost Meter Card.

    2. Make the changes and save the file.

    3. Upload the JSON file and click Save.

To create the Cost Meter Cards, perform the following steps:

  1. Log in to the Virtana Global View and click Governance.

  2. Select On-Premises Cost Governance and click Cost Meter Cards.

    The Cost Meter Cards page opens.

    Cost_meter_card_GV.png
    Table 18. Cost Meter Cards Fields Description

    Field

    Description

    Meter Name

    User-defined name for the Meter Card.

    Site

    Name of the isolated geographic area where the resource or service is provisioned, for example, VI-Appliance.

    Vendor

    Identifies the entity that made the resources or services available, for example, TESLA.

    Category

    Specifies the type of resource or service to which the Meter Card applies, for example, GPU, Compute, Storage, or Token.

    Price

    Indicates the cost of infrastructure resources.

    Billing Start Date

    Timestamp indicating the start of the billing period.

    Billing End Date

    Timestamp indicating the end of the billing period.

    Status

    Indicates whether the Meter Card is Active or Inactive.

    Active Status: The Meter Card is used in cost calculations and is considered valid for metering and billing purposes.

    In-Active Status: The Meter Card is ignored in cost calculations and is not used for any billing or metering operations.



  3. Click Create/Upload New Meter Card.

    The Create New Meter Card window opens.

    Create_cost_meter_card_GV.png

  4. To create meter cards, you can either upload a JSON file or create them manually.

    Enter the following details to create a Meter Card manually:

    Table 19. Meter Card Fields and their Description

    Field

    Description

    Meter Card Title (Mandatory Field)

    User-defined title for the Meter Card.

    Billing Information (Mandatory Field)

    Billing Period Start

    Timestamp indicating the start of the billing period.

    Billing Period End

    Timestamp indicating the end of the billing period.

    Currency

    Specifies the currency code, for example, USD, INR.

    Pricing Information (Mandatory Field)

    Category

    Specifies the type of resource or service to which the Meter Card applies. The category determines the units available for the following resource:

    • Compute – used for CPU and memory‑based compute capacity.

    • GPU – used for GPU time‑based costing.

    • Token – used for LLM token‑based costing.

    • Storage – used for on‑premises storage capacity.

    Unit

    Specifies the measurement unit for the selected category. The available options depend on the selected category:

    • Compute – CPU or GB for memory.

    • GPU – time‑based units used to convert GPU usage into cost, for example, per hour.

    • Token – Input or Output to represent request and response tokens.

    • Storage – GB, TB, PB (usable or effective capacity).

    The unit you choose is used to convert the raw metric values into cost.

    Unit Price

    Indicates the cost as per the defined units of the Meter Card.

    Location (Optional)

    Site

    Name of the isolated geographic area where the resource or service is provisioned, like Boston or Los Angeles.

    Lineage of Charge (Optional)

    Vendor

    Identifies the entity that made the resources or services available.

    Additional Information (Optional)

    IO Instance

    System-generated universally unique identifier associated with a specific appliance or device.

    Entity Name

    Descriptive name or label representing the resource, service, or organizational entity related to the charge.



  5. Change the status of the meter card to Active.

  6. (Optional) You can add additional fields for cost calculations, such as SKU information or Lineage of Charge from the Edit Meter Card Fields option.

  7. Click Save to create the Meter Card. You can create multiple Meter Cards with different criteria for various use cases.

  8. (Optional) To export Cost Meter Cards, select the Meter Cards you want to export using the checkboxes and click Export in the Cost Meter Cards window.

    Cost_meter_card_export_GV.png

    You will receive a JSON file containing the selected meter cards, which will be downloaded automatically.

Based on the Cost Meter Cards, the On-Premises Storage and Compute Dashboards will show the cost of consumed resources. See Editing Cost Meter Cards to edit and update the existing Cost Meter Cards.

Behavior of Cost Meter Cards in Dashboard

  • The cost is calculated correctly if a Cost Meter Card is created and kept active for at least a month.

  • If the Meter Card is not active for a few days, the cost is not calculated for those inactive days. However, you can view the sum of previous days on the On-Premises Storage Array Cost And Capacity Summary page. It displays the price for the month.

  • If the unit price of a Meter Card is edited, the updated cost does not immediately reflect on the Cost and Capacity Dashboard. The cost is updated only after the cron job runs, usually overnight or by the next day.

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