October 4, 2017 at 1:03 pm
Hello
I'm writing a paper for a class on a realsituation of billing our clients for database services.
The billing model mimics the Microsoftlicense of being based on edition and number of cores.
Dealing with licensing and billing has changedmy role as a DBA to include finances.
Does anyone else of this forum have experiencewith designing a billing model for SQL Server?
How involved are you with the procurement andlicensing?
Have you experienced your role as a SQL ServerDBA change? Has the option of cloud services changed things for you?
Thanks in advance for any feedback. If youhave any useful links to check out, please share.
Thanks
Dave
October 4, 2017 at 1:10 pm
It would probably help others to answer if you were to define what you mean by 'database services'.
When I first read your post, I assumed that you meant the provision of DBA services on a consulting basis, but on second reading, it sounds more like the provision of a hosted hardware and software facility.
If you haven't even tried to resolve your issue, please don't expect the hard-working volunteers here to waste their time providing links to answers which you could easily have found yourself.
October 4, 2017 at 1:27 pm
Most places I have worked (or work) just treat IT as overhead, no charge back to the departments or contracts.
October 4, 2017 at 2:01 pm
Hello - A "database service" is any time a database is used.
I work for a government agency that is implementing a billing service to other government agencies within the same state. Our agency maintains the servers and databases used by other agencies.
In the past, other agencies were charged for mainframe services only. Outside agencies did not pay for "database services" like SQL Server or Oracle.
The new billing model for the other database services (SQL Server and Oracle) were left up to the database administrator to work with the finance consultant to come up with a solution. How to bill outside agencies for database usage.
Now I am completing a research paper on how a billing model was created. I wasn't sure how a DBA should be responsible for the finance side of things but I am considering other viewpoints . I am looking for feedback from other DBAs to see if they have been in similar situations (working on IT duties then shifting to finance duties like procurement, proper licensing, billing). There are articles that say that the DBA role is changing. There is a push to use cloud services which could put our agency out of business or in a contract that would not be favorable long term. Communicating with finance consultants replaced other duties that had to be delegated to another DBA.
I wanted to see opinions from a newsgroup like this. What has your experience with licensing and procurement been? Has your role as a DBA changed? Is there any advice on how to handle these changes?
Thanks
Dave
October 4, 2017 at 4:34 pm
dmsdeegan - Wednesday, October 4, 2017 2:01 PMHello - A "database service" is any time a database is used.I work for a government agency that is implementing a billing service to other government agencies within the same state. Our agency maintains the servers and databases used by other agencies.
In the past, other agencies were charged for mainframe services only. Outside agencies did not pay for "database services" like SQL Server or Oracle.
The new billing model for the other database services (SQL Server and Oracle) were left up to the database administrator to work with the finance consultant to come up with a solution. How to bill outside agencies for database usage.
Now I am completing a research paper on how a billing model was created. I wasn't sure how a DBA should be responsible for the finance side of things but I am considering other viewpoints . I am looking for feedback from other DBAs to see if they have been in similar situations (working on IT duties then shifting to finance duties like procurement, proper licensing, billing). There are articles that say that the DBA role is changing. There is a push to use cloud services which could put our agency out of business or in a contract that would not be favorable long term. Communicating with finance consultants replaced other duties that had to be delegated to another DBA.
I wanted to see opinions from a newsgroup like this. What has your experience with licensing and procurement been? Has your role as a DBA changed? Is there any advice on how to handle these changes?
Thanks
Dave
When I read the first line of this response I found myself really offended by the attitude behind it. Is that how you would have answered someone in person that asked the same or similar question trying to figure out what you were trying to accomplish?
From what I can see you are basically trying to come up with a charge-back system for the agencies using your systems. The first thing you are going to need, most likely, is a reliable monitoring system that can tell you how much disk space each agency is using, how much cpu time each is using, same with network usage I would guess. Then you need to determine how these this cost you overall so you can correctly apportion costs back to the other agencies. Tried this at a previous employer once to charge-back to other departments the costs for services. Gave up and continued to be an overhead to the company.
October 4, 2017 at 5:41 pm
Hi Lynn - thank you for taking the time to reply and pointing out that my post seemed to have attitude behind it. After reading it again, I can see what you mean. I did not mean to have any attitude. I sincerely appreciate the time that people take to respond to newsgroup questions.
The term "database services" was thought up by a non-DBA and part of my job will be explaining and justifying what my agency does for other agencies. The Oracle team came up with a chargeback model based on # of seconds for CPU usage. They only took a months worth of metrics to determine an annual rate. I thought it made more sense to charge on # of cores and edition to balance out was spent on licensing. The financial consultant seemed to favor the Oracle way because it seemed more marketable. Since I didn't have metrics, I stuck with my original suggestion. The financial consultant came up with a formula for SQL Server based on cores, edition, and DBA salary. As far as I know, there was no investigation on the procurement of our Microsoft Volume licensing. I am also involved in the annual "true-up" process for SQL Server and found some charges for active-active clusters when active-passive was installed. (The SSRS install now but configure later was tagged as a service that made active-active licensing necessary, this is a whole other topic...).
These type of issues are not what I expected as a DBA.
I'm writing a research report for a class on implementing a billing model for SQL Server. I'm reporting on all of the positives and negatives. One discovery that I am finding is that change is a constant and I will need to continue to adjust my thinking to keep up. Do the DBAs on this newsgroup agree? Are they in a similar position? My question is "is this normal?" Any thoughts or advice?
I feel like I'm in a different world dealing with license and finances. Again, I apologize if anything sounded rude.
Thanks
Dave
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