IBM eases billing for virtualized environments

"IBM has launched software to help companies deploying virtualized computing environments more easily bill business departments or external clients based on consumption of resources. Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager is based on technology IBM acquired from asset-tracking software company CIMS Lab in January 2006. It allows users to track through a Web-based interface consumption of virtual server, storage, network, software, and middleware resources. Administrators can measure resource consumption at the company, department or individual level, to bill users based on actual usage.

An IBM customer survey conducted this year revealed that "the number one reason among customers not implementing virtualization is charge back, the ability to accurately allocate cost of shared infrastructure across the enterprise, and addressing organizational barriers and concerns," said Rich Lechner, vice president of virtualization for IBM, in Armonk, New York."