Billing Usage in a Virtual Computing Infrastructure

• US 20120116937A1
• Filed: 11/17/2011
• Published: 05/10/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Van Biljon, Willem Robert, Pinkham, Christopher Conway, Cloran, Russell Andrew, Gorven, Michael Carl, Hardy, Alexandre, Divey, Brynmor K.B., Hoole, Quinton Robin, Kalele, Girish
• Granted Patent: US 9,202,239 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2141 Access rights, e.g. capability lists, access control lists, access tables, access matrices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2145 Inheriting rights or properties, e.g., propagation of permissions or restrictions within a hierarchy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/10 Tax strategies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0236 Filtering by address, protocol, port number or service, e.g. IP-address or URL
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/101 Access control lists [ACL]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/66 Policy and charging system

Abstract

Billing usage of a cloud computing environment is described. Usage is metered of one or more resources within the cloud computing environment by one or more users. The one or more users may be associated with at least one entity. The metered usage of one or more cloud resources is converted to a revenue-generating value. The revenue-generating value is billed to the at least one entity associated with the one or more users. Revenue is collected from the at least one entity for the metered usage of one or more cloud resources. The collected revenue is shared with a plurality of parties.

Claims

1. A method of billing usage of a cloud computing environment, comprising:

metering usage of one or more resources within the cloud computing environment by one or more users, wherein the one or more users is associated with at least one entity;

converting the metered usage of one or more cloud resources to a revenue-generating value;

billing the revenue-generating value to the at least one entity associated with the one or more users;

collecting revenue from the at least one entity for the metered usage of one or more cloud resources; and

sharing the collected revenue with a plurality of parties.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the collected revenue is shared by at least one service provider of the cloud computing environment.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the collected revenue is shared by at least one service provider of the cloud computing environment and at least one service vendor.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the at least one service vendor is a software vendor.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the at least one service vendor adds one or more functionality to the infrastructure of the cloud computing environment.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein metering usage of one or more cloud resources includes at least one from a group consisting of:

one or more compute resources used on a per time basis, one or more read and write I/O operations, and network bandwidth usage.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein metering usage is conducted at one or more of an applications programming interface (API).

8. The method of claim 1, wherein metering usage is conducted at a storage backend.

9. A method of billing usage of a cloud computing environment, comprising:

interpreting one or more rules based on a billing configuration, wherein each rule includes

a rule name,

a sequence of a plurality of predicates associated with the rule name and with one or more billing or accounting values, and

one or more actions that take place once the sequence of a plurality of predicates are determined to be true, the one or more actions being a recordation of one or more billing or accounting values;

associating one or more accounting configurations with usage of one or more cloud resources;

associating one or more entities with a set of account settlement rules; and

and generating at least one report or payment file based on rule information, accounting configuration information, and one or more entities information.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the at least one report or payment file includes data that records the consumption of one or more cloud resources.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the account configuration includes

an account name referenced by the one or more rules;

account information associated with banking details;

information associated with a business cycle;

a debit value performed to the account information in a current business cycle for the account information; and

historic debit and credit value information.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein one or more of the accounting configurations is a clearing account against which one or debits or credits are performed when a payment file is generated.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one of the plurality of predicates includes an expression that tests the value of a tag in a usage record.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the tag is associated with a value that identifies an account.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one of the billing or accounting values includes a sequence of tag values that provide a detailed breakdown of the calculation of an account'"'"'s value.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the one or more rules includes a plurality of rules and the number of the plurality of rules is shortened by tuple sets that specify meta rules.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein interpreting one or more rules includes determining shared billing allocations.

18. The method of claim 9, wherein interpreting one or more rules includes determining revenue share allocations among a plurality of entities.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein revenue share allocations includes revenue allocations divided by at least one service provider of the cloud computing environment and at least one service vendor.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the at least one service vendor is a software vendor.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein the at least one service vendor adds one or more functionality to the infrastructure of the cloud computing environment.

22. A system for billing usage of a cloud computing environment, comprising:

a billing engine configured to interpret one or more rules based on a billing configuration, wherein each rule includes a rule name,

a sequence of a plurality of predicates associated with the rule name and with one or more billing or accounting values, and

one or more actions that take place once the sequence of a plurality of predicates are determined to be true, the one or more actions being a recordation of one or more billing or accounting values;

a configuration module configured to provide one or more accounting configurations to the billing engine, the one or more accounting configurations further including one or more accounts associated with usage of one or more cloud resources and one or more entities associated with a set of account settlement rules; and

a presentation layer configured to collate information from the rule engine and configuration module and generate at least one report or payment file.