Cloud Director Availability Metering

Cloud Director Availability Metering #

Usage Meter collects the number of all replications (migrations and protections) configured in VMware Cloud Director Availability during the month. The collection is performed on an hourly basis. Replications for both powered-on and powered-off VMs are counted. At the end of the month, the report shows the number of all the unique migrated VMs and all the unique protected VMs.

Prerequisites #

  • vCloud Usage Meter can connect to VMware Cloud Director Availability.
  • You have the credentials for the VMware Cloud Director Availability root or another user with sufficient privileges.

Configuration #

  1. In the main menu bar of the vCloud Usage Meter Web interface, click Products.
  2. In the left pane, navigate to Migration & Recovery > Cloud Director Availability.
  3. On the Cloud Director Availability page, click Add.
  4. In the Endpoint text box, enter the host name or IP address of the VMware Cloud Director Availability instance.
  5. From the Autentication provider radio button, select one of the authenitcation mechanisms.
Authentication mechanism Description
Cloud Director Availability Select if you use a Cloud Director Replication Management Appliance or a vCenter Replication Management Appliance. Requires the root user account credentials of the VMware Cloud Director Availability appliance.
vSphere SSO Select if you use the vCenter Replication Management Appliance. Requires vSphere SSO credentials. The user must be a member of the VrMonitoringAdministrators SSO group in vSphere.
Cloud Director Select if you use the Cloud Director Replication Management Appliance. The user must have a provider account with the VCDA_READ_RIGHT role assigned in VMware Cloud Director.
  1. In the Username and Password text boxes, enter the credentials of the selected VMware Cloud Director Availability authentication provider.
  2. Click Add.

Note: If you deploy vCloud Usage Meter as a part of the same network segment as VMware Cloud Director Availability that has direct access to to the Cloud Director Replication Management Appliance or the vCenter Replication Management Appliance, provide the Cloud Replication Management Appliance address as Endpoint. If vCloud Usage Meter cannot access the private IP address of the Cloud Director Replication Management Appliance or the vCenter Replication Management Appliance because of deployment specifics, you must provide the Service Endpoint address or the TCP Load Balancer address (if VMware Cloud Director Availability operates with a second Tunnel Appliance for High Availability) as Endpoint. For a Cloud Replication Management Appliance, set the Restrict Admin APIs by source IP configuration to Allow admin access from anywhere.

If the metering fails due to VMware Cloud Director Availability not being available or Usage Meter is not functioning, Usage Meter will report the last known “Protected VMs” count. This can lead to some replications not reported in the total number of unique replications for the month. If there is no successful collection during the month, VMware Cloud Director Availability usage will not be reported.

Metered cases #

  • Cloud-to-Cloud migrations and protections, where the registered VMware Cloud Director Availability is the destination. vCenter-to-Cloud migrations and protections, where the registered VMware Cloud Director Availability is the destination. (This case also includes vApp template migrations and protections which are metered like standard vApp/VM migrations and protections. Please note the metering is done per VM and not per template.)
  • Cloud-to-vCenter migrations and protections, where the registered VMware Cloud Director Availability is the source.
  • vCenter Cloud-to-vCenter Cloud migrations and protections, where the registered VMware Cloud Director Availability is the destination.
  • vCenter-to-vCenter Cloud migrations and protections, where the registered VMware Cloud Director Availability is the destination.
  • vCenter Cloud-to-vCenter migrations and protections, where the registered VMware Cloud Director Availability is the source.

Reporting #

VMware Cloud Director Availability ™ reporting consists of:

  • Disaster Recovery: The number of VMs under protection - 10 points per protected virtual machine per month. A protected VM is any virtual machine that is replicated from the primary site to the recovery site, regardless of whether the VM is powered on or off.
  • Migration: The number of VMs configured for migration (no charge) - 0 points per migration. To be counted as migration, the workload replication must be configured by using the button “New migration” from the UI or by invoking an API call that sets the replication type to migration.

Please note that all usage should be reported to the following SKUs, regardless of the version in use:

  • VMW-VCAN-CA-C – VMware Cloud Director Availability – Disaster Recovery
  • VMW-VCAN-CA-MIG-C – VMware Cloud Director Availability – Migration