Abiquo 4.6
Introduction to pricing
With Abiquo pricing, you can create pricing models to match service level agreements and assign them to your tenants and resellers. Customers can obtain estimates for their virtual appliances from the pricing system. Abiquo Accounting meters tenant resource usage and Abiquo billing enables you to charge customers for this usage based on pricing.
Privilege: Access Pricing view, Manage pricing
For each datacenter, you can set separate prices, and use different currencies, and you can set cost codes for resources, such as VM image templates. Create your pricing models in Pricing view, after you create and assign any supporting currencies and cost codes. Abiquo controls pricing with scopes as well as privileges to enable reseller pricing.
Click the 
icon to access Pricing view. The workflow to create a new pricing model is as follows:
- Enter currencies
- Create cost codes
- Create the pricing model
- Assign the model to an enterprise
Pricing is available in the Abiquo API. See CurrenciesResource, CostCodesResource, PricingTemplatesResource, EnterprisesResource
Create a new currency
The platform supports multiple currencies.
- Default currencies are euros, US dollars, and Japanese yen
- You cannot delete a currency that is in use
- You must always have at least one currency
- Each pricing model uses only one currency
To add a new currency
Go to Pricing → Currencies
- Complete the dialog and click Save
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Code | Standard currency code, for example EUR, USD, for display in the pricing tabs. Download information from the ISO website or refer to Wikipedia |
Name | Unique name of the currency and the currency symbol |
Digits | Number of digits after the decimal point. If you change the pricing model from a currency with more digits to one with fewer digits, then prices will be rounded up to the nearest digit. |
Create a new cost code
To tag resources such as VM templates and hardware profiles for pricing, use cost codes. When users in enterprises with a pricing model deploy a VM using a resource with a cost code, the pricing estimate will include the cost assigned to the cost code.
To create a cost code for resource pricing
Go to Pricing → Cost codes
- Complete the dialog and initial prices
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Name | The name of the cost code, may be related to the resource |
Description | Description of the cost code, may be related to the resource |
Set the Initial prices for a resource in all of the currencies in your platform. You can assign later different prices in each pricing model.
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Code | The currency code |
Name | The currency name |
Price | The price in the currency given in this row |
Now assign cost codes to VM templates (see Modify a VM Template) and hardware profiles (see Hardware profiles). Then set prices for the cost codes in your pricing models. Note that you can override cost code prices by setting prices for specific hardware profiles. Pricing and billing for dynamic hardware profiles will also use prices for CPU and RAM for the datacenter.
Create a new pricing model
To assign prices to resources for enterprises, create pricing models with prices for VM elements. You can clone an existing pricing model to create a new one. The platform controls access to pricing models with scopes as well as privileges and it will assign your user scope to the pricing model.
Before you begin
- To use a new currency, add it at Pricing → Currencies
- To use cost codes for resources, create them at Pricing → Cost codes, and when convenient, assign them to resources, for example, templates in the Apps library view.
To create a pricing model:
Go to Pricing → Pricing models
- To clone a pricing model, click the
clone button. The platform will name the new model "PricingModelName (c)".
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Name | The name of your pricing model. The name can represent a service level agreement |
| Description | Description of pricing model |
| Change all resource prices | Only displays when the enterprise already has a pricing model assigned to it. Resellers can change all prices by adding this percentage. See below |
Charging period | Standard period of time by which a user will be charged, such as day, week, etc. Does not have to be equal to the minimum period |
Minimum charging period | Minimum period of time that a user will be charged for. This may be longer or shorter than the charging period. This value is not sent to the billing system. Note that the accounting system records the maximum usage value of a resource during an accounting period. |
Currency | The currency for this pricing model. Enter new currencies in the Currency tab before you create the pricing model |
Standing charge | Standing charge per Charging period. You can include this value in the pricing estimate message but the platform does not send it to the billing system |
Minimum charge | Minimum charge per Minimum charging period. You can include this value in the pricing estimate message but the platform does not send it to the billing system |
Show charges before deployment | Mark this checkbox to show a pricing estimate popup before deployment with the message entered in the box at the bottom of the window. See the explanation below |
Insert variable | Choose a variable from the pull-down list to add to the pricing estimate message. The variables are described in the table below |
Deployment message | Enter the estimate message for VM deployment, including variables. See Create a pricing estimate message |
Modify prices
The platform uses the first pricing model for a location in a currency as the set of base prices for the location. When you create a new pricing model, you can enter a percentage to modify prices. If you then enter a resource price that is lower than the base price, the platform will highlight the price.
Prices
Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Currency | The currency for this location (datacenter or public cloud region) |
Hypervisor Datastores GB | Price of hypervisor datastores per gigabyte. In public cloud regions, the platform does not use this value |
VLANs | Price per VLAN (at least one VLAN is always created for each virtual datacenter) |
Public IPs | Price per public IP address reserved |
| NAT IPs | Price per NAT IP address reserved |
CPU | Price per virtual CPU core for deployed virtual machines. If the location uses hardware profiles, pricing does not use this value. |
| CPU on | Price per virtual CPU core when virtual machine is powered ON |
| CPU off | Price per virtual CPU core when virtual machine is powered OFF |
Memory (GB) | Price of virtual memory in GB for deployed virtual machine. If the location uses hardware profiles, pricing does not use this value. |
| Memory on (GB) | Price of virtual memory in GB when virtual machine is powered ON |
| Memory off (GB) | Price of virtual memory in GB when virtual machine is powered OFF |
| Repository (GB) | Price of template repository use in GB for virtual machine templates. The platform does not include conversions. In public cloud regions, the platform does not use this value |
| Anti-Affinity | Price per VM deployed in anti-affinity layer. In public cloud regions, the platform does not use this value |
| Firewall | Price per firewall attached to VM |
| Load balancer | Price per load balancer attached to VM |
The provider can configure billing by usage or allocation.
Datastore tiers
In a private cloud datacenter, datastore tiers set service levels for storage. See Manage Datastore Service Levels with Datastore Tiers.
Persistent storage
In a private cloud datacenter, persistent storage tiers set service levels for storage. See Manage Storage
Hardware profiles
You can price hardware profiles in public cloud and in private cloud datacenters with hardware profiles, see Hardware profiles. The platform can retrieve hardware profile costs from AWS and Azure. See Import hardware profile prices from AWS
In private cloud, you can also use cost codes for hardware profile pricing. Pricing and billing of dynamic hardware profiles also includes the usage cost of CPU and RAM.
Privilege: View datacenter details, Manage enterprises
Backup prices
In private cloud datacenters, you can set prices for backup policies.
When users request a pricing estimate for their virtual appliance, the platform will include the price of the backup policies of each VM.
The platform will also include the price of backup policies in the VM_PRICES list.
Privilege: View datacenter details, Manage enterprises
Cost code prices
This tab displays resources and cost codes with their prices.
Troubleshooting
Access to pricing models
- When you create a pricing model, Abiquo automatically assigns the same scope as your user. The Abiquo UI does not display the scope of the pricing model
- Users with pricing privileges can always display the pricing model of their own enterprise. Administrators who can switch to another enterprise can display the current pricing model of the enterprise, even if the pricing model has a different scope
- To display or manage the pricing model of another enterprise in Pricing view, you must have the same scope as the creator of the pricing model
Display a pricing estimate message
To display pricing estimates, assign a pricing model to the enterprise. The platform will display the estimates as follows:
At any time users can click the Estimate button in the virtual appliance view to display a current pricing estimate for a VM.
Pricing estimate button with EUR price code
A sample pricing message
- Users with access to the Abiquo API can also request a pricing estimate via the API.
- To automatically display a pricing estimate popup when the user deploys a virtual appliance or VM, when creating a pricing model, select the checkbox to "Show charges before deployment".
Configure the pricing estimate message
The default message is: "The charge for this Virtual Appliance will be %CHARGE_FORMATTED% per %CHARGEPERIOD%, charged per %MINPERIOD%, subject to a minimum charge of %MINCHARGE_FORMATTED%. VMs in this Virtual Appliance will be: %VM_PRICES%. Resources defined in the Virtual Datacenter total %VDC_TOTAL_CHARGE% per %CHARGEPERIOD%: %VDC_PRICES%"
The virtual appliance and VM pricing estimates only include the costs that are directly related to VMs. The virtual datacenters resources estimate includes other costs such as the VLAN cost, and the cost of datastore disks without a datastore tier, such as a cloud-init ISO. The VDC resources cost also includes public IP addresses because they are billed for the time of reservation, which may be longer than the time they are attached to a VM.
To customize the pricing estimate message:
- Edit the message, change the text and use the standard cut and paste keys to change the location of the variables.
- You can also select variables to add to this message from the pull-down list. Align the message with your accounting system.
Variable | Description and example |
|---|---|
%CHARGE_FORMATTED% | Charge for the virtual machine, for example "22.50 USD" |
%CHARGEPERIOD% | Charging period, for example "month". |
%MINCHARGE_FORMATTED% | Minimum charge, for example 2.25 USD. |
%MINCHARGEPERIOD% | Minimum charging period, for example "week" |
| %VM_PRICES% | List of charges per virtual machine. for example: |
| %VDC_PRICES% | List of charges per virtual datacenter resource |
| %VDC_TOTAL_CHARGE | Total charge for virtual datacenter resources, not including VMs |
Assign pricing models to enterprises
After you save a pricing model, to assign it to one or more tenants, do these steps:
- Go to Pricing → Enterprise associations
- In the Pricing models column, select the pricing model
- In the Enterprises without pricing model column, beside the name of each Enterprise to assign to, select the pricing model from the pull-down list
After the screen updates, the Enterprise name moves to the column of Enterprises with a pricing model.
You can also assign or remove a pricing model from an enterprise when you create or edit the enterprise. See Manage Enterprises
Create reseller pricing
Abiquo supports reseller pricing with pricing scope and default base prices per datacenter.
To implement reseller pricing:
- Create a scope for each reseller that is not the unlimited global scope
- Create pricing models with the base prices that resellers will pay for virtual resources
- Assign a pricing model to each reseller
When the reseller first opens the Pricing view, their pricing model will display. The administrator can edit this pricing model to view prices but they cannot save changes, unless they have the same scope as the user that assigned the pricing model to the enterprise.
The reseller can then create their own pricing models:
They can enter a percentage to increase or decrease the base prices.
- For resource prices, the platform applies the percentage change (adding the percentage of the base price the reseller entered to the base price).
- The reseller can accept the new prices or manually enter a new price for any resource. If they enter a price that is lower than the base price, Abiquo will highlight the price with red text.
After an administrator saves the pricing model they can then assign it to their customers. Each customer administrator should only be able to display the pricing model for their own tenant.
For a guide to pricing for resellers, see Pricing for Resellers
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