How to register vCloud Usage Meter in the Cloud

Products

VMware

Issue/Introduction

Register vCloud Usage Meter

Once you complete the deployment and configuration of vCloud Usage Meter, you need to register it in VMware Commerce Portal to start metering your VMware products. The registration establishes a connection between vCloud Usage Meter and vCloud Usage Insight, which aggregates the collected usage data and sends it to the VMware Commerce Portal at the end of the reporting cycle.

Resolution

Prerequisites

To register your vCloud Usage Meter in VMware Commerce Portal, you need access to that portal. Read this information to get started with VMware Commerce Portal.
To establish a connection between the registered Usage Meter and vCloud Usage Insight, you need access to the latter. Currently, vCloud Usage Insight is part of Cloud Partner Navigator. To access and work with vCloud Usage Insight, you must have access to Cloud Partner Navigator. For more details on how to gain access to Cloud Partner Navigator, check the following information. After getting onboarded to Cloud Partner Navigator, vCloud Usage Insight will be activated for your organization.

There are two options to register your vCloud Usage Meter instance:

In the VMware Commerce Portal
In Cloud Partner Navigator

Register vCloud Usage Meter in VMware Commerce Portal

Procedure

Go to VMware Commerce Portal to register the vCloud Usage Meter.
Click Profile in the drop-down menu under your username.
In your profile, do the following:

Check if you have the following role assigned: Auto Reports Operations. This role helps you manage Usage Meters, manage tickets, update the site, read contracts and update a partner profile.
Next to Auto Reporting for Rental, click Opt In if you haven’t done it yet. This option enables automatic reporting of Usage Meter for Rental contracts.
Next to Flex Pricing Model for Rental, click Opt In if you haven’t done it yet. This option helps you switch to the VMware Flex Pricing Model. Read the following blog post to learn more about new pricing the model.

Under Contracts, in the VMware Commerce Portal, select a contract with which you will associate your Usage Meter.
In the selected contract, click the Usage Meter Instances tab.
Click Register New to register your vCloud Usage Meter.
In the Usage Meter registration form, do the following:

Enter a name for this appliance.
Paste the vCloud Usage Meter UUID.
Select the site for which the appliance will report data.
Select the version of the appliance to be 4.X.
Select the mode in which the appliance will operate.

Note: The Test mode is used for evaluation, while the Production mode is used for actual metering and reporting. Once you select the Production mode, you cannot change it to Test for this appliance later. A workaround is to delete the registered Usage Meter in VMware Commerce Portal and then register it again in Test mode.

Click OK to register the appliance.
Back to the Usage Meter initialization wizard, click CHECK REGISTRATION.

Note: The vCloud Usage Meter registration state is determined by checking its connection to vCloud Usage Insight. If there is a connection between them, the registration of the Usage Meter is successful.

If the connection of vCloud Usage Meter to vCloud Usage Insight is successful, click Finish. The registration is now complete, and you can start adding VMware products to the vCloud Usage Meter web application.

Register vCloud Usage Meter in Cloud Partner Navigator

Prerequisites

Enable a trusted connection between your Cloud Partner Navigator organization and VMware Commerce Portal. See the details here.

Procedure

You can set up automatic reporting for Rental and Term contracts by registering your vCloud Usage Meter instances with a contract in VMware Cloud Partner Navigator.

On the VMware Cloud Partner Navigator toolbar, click Usage & Commerce > Usage Meter Operations.
Click Add Usage Meter.
Enter the details of the vCloud Usage Meter instance.
1. Enter a label for the instance.
2. Enter the instance ID.
3. From the Rental Contract drop-down menu, select a rental contract.
4. From the Term Contract drop-down menu, select a term contract.
  The Term Contract drop-down menu only appears if you have an active term contract in VMware Cloud Provider Commerce Portal.
5. Select the rental contract and term contract sites from the Site drop-down menus.
  The Site menus only appear if there are sites associated with the contract of the instance. To create new sites, you must log in to VMware Cloud Provider Commerce Portal.
6. Select a usage billing mode. The Production mode means that your usage data will be billed in the VMware Commerce Portal after the reporting period ends. The Test mode is used for evaluation and does not send the aggregated data to VMware Commerce Portal; thus, the metered usage is not billed.
7. Select a connectivity mode. The Online mode means that Usage Meter sends data to Usage Insight via the Internet, and the data is populated in the Cloud Partner Navigator portal. The Offline mode is used when vCloud Usage Meter has no connection to vCloud Usage Insight. The usage data needs to be uploaded manually to Cloud Partner Navigator.
8. (Optionally) Select whether vRealize Operations and vRealize Network Insight will be reported as standalone products.
To complete the Usage Meter registration, click Save.
Back to the Usage Meter initialization wizard, click CHECK REGISTRATION.

Note: The vCloud Usage Meter registration state is determined by checking its connection to vCloud Usage Insight. If there is a connection between them, the registration of the Usage Meter is successful.

If the connection of vCloud Usage Meter to vCloud Usage Insight is successful, click Finish. The registration is now complete, and you can start adding VMware products to the vCloud Usage Meter web application.