VMware recently
announced the end of availability of it’s billing product, vCenter Chargeback Manager, but what that means ?
First of all
End of Availability (EOA) is not the same as End of Life (EOL), which means, when a product is
EOA you will not be able to purchase the product anymore, for Chargeback this
date will be June 10th, 2014.
But since it’s
NOT EOL yet, for the one that already purchased it, you can still using the product for as long as you wish, VMware
will still providing support and releasing fix patches until the EOL of the
product, which for Chargeback, is June 30th, 2015.
One note aside,
if you are a service provider under VSPP program, it does not affect you,
Chargeback will still be available for you guys.
But, why of
that ?
Well, overtime
Chargeback became a complex product with a lot of options, which fits perfectly
the service providers needs, but became too complex for the majority of enterprise
companies, which just need a more simple solution.
OK, what’s for
the Enterprise Companies instead ?
VMware would
not let you down, for Enterprise Companies there’s a new billing product, IT Business Management (ITBM).
ITBM comes
which 3 versions, Standard, Advanced and Enteprise.
For the ones
looking for providing cost of virtual machines and utilization of shared resources
the Standard version will fit perfectly, but you would be amazed with the
features of the others versions have, like providing benchmarking information
and finance management.
Here’s a
comparison chart about the versions.
