Methods and systems to evaluate cost driver and virtual data center costs

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016379237-A1
Application number	US-201514754083-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 29, 2015
Priority date	Jun 29, 2015
Publication date	Dec 29, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

This disclosure is directed to methods and systems to evaluate the performance of a virtual data center (“VDC”) running in a data center by comparing costs of cost drivers and VDC costs with cloud computing industry benchmarks. Methods collect costs of cost drivers and total VDC costs of a cloud computing industry. Cost driver industry benchmarks of the cloud computing industry are computed from the costs of the cost drivers and compared costs of cost drivers of a data center to determine which cost drivers of the data center are unacceptable. Methods also include determining a monetary impact of the cost drivers of the data center based the cost driver industry benchmarks and the total VDC costs of the cloud computing industry.

First claim

1 . A method stored in one or more data-storage devices and executed using one or more processors of a computing environment to evaluate costs of cost drivers and virtual data centers, the method comprising:
collecting costs of cost drivers and total virtual data center (“VDC”) costs of a cloud computing industry; computing cost driver industry benchmarks of the cloud computing industry based on the costs of the cost drivers; comparing costs of cost drivers of a data center with the cost driver industry benchmarks to determine which cost drivers of the data center are outside cost driver bounds; determining monetary impact of the cost drivers of the data center based the cost driver industry benchmarks and the total VDC costs of the cloud computing industry; and storing the costs of cost drivers and monetary impact of the cost drivers in the one or more data storage device.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein collecting the costs of cost drivers and total VDC costs of the cloud computing industry further comprises collecting the costs of cost drivers and total VDC costs from multiple data centers.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein computing the cost driver industry benchmarks of the cloud computing industry further comprises computing an industry average cost driver cost for each cost driver in the cloud computing industry.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein comparing the costs of cost drivers of the data center with the cost driver industry benchmarks further comprises:
computing an industry average cost driver cost for each cost driver of the cloud computing industry; and for each cost driver of the data center,
computing a difference between a cost of the cost driver of the data center and a corresponding industry average cost drive cost,
when the difference is greater than a cost driver bound associated with the cost driver, generating an alert that indicates the cost of the cost driver is greater than the industry average cost drive cost, and
when the difference is less than a cost driver bound associated with the cost driver, generating an alert that indicates the cost of the cost driver is less than the industry average cost drive cost.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the monetary impact of the cost drivers of the data center further comprises:
computing an industry average total VDC cost based on the total VDC costs of the cloud computing industry; for each cost driver of the cloud computing industry,
computing an industry average cost driver cost, and
computing an industry cost driver fraction based on the industry average driver cost and the industry average total VDC cost;
for each cost driver of the data center,
computing a normalized industry equivalent cost driver cost based the industry cost driver fraction of the cost driver and the total VDC cost of the data center,
computing the monetary impact based on the normalized industry equivalent cost driver cost and the cost driver,
when the monetary impact is greater than a monetary impact threshold, generating an alert that indicates overpayment of the cost driver, and
when the monetary impact is less than a monetary impact threshold, generating an alert that indicates underpayment of the cost driver.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the cost drivers includes server hardware, licensing, maintenance, labor, network, and facilities.

7 . A system comprising:
one or more processors; one or more data-storage devices; and machine-readable instructions stored in the data-storage devices and executed using the one or more processors, the machine-readable instructions collecting costs of cost drivers and total virtual data center (“VDC”) costs of a cloud computing industry; computing cost driver industry benchmarks of the cloud computing industry based on the costs of the cost drivers; comparing costs of cost drivers of a data center with the cost driver industry benchmarks to determine which cost drivers of the data center are outside cost driver bounds; determining monetary impact of the cost drivers of the data center based the cost driver industry benchmarks and the total VDC costs of the cloud computing industry; and storing the costs of cost drivers and monetary impact of the cost drivers in the one or more data storage device.

8 . The system of claim 7 , wherein collecting the costs of cost drivers and total VDC costs of the cloud computing industry further comprises collecting the costs of cost drivers and total VDC costs from multiple data centers.

9 . The system of claim 7 , wherein computing the cost driver industry benchmarks of the cloud computing industry farther comprises computing an industry average cost driver cost for each cost driver in the cloud computing industry.

10 . The system of claim 7 , wherein comparing the costs of cost drivers of the data center with the cost driver industry benchmarks further comprises:
computing an industry average cost driver cost for each cost driver of the cloud computing industry; and for each cost driver of the data center,
computing a difference between a cost of the cost driver of the data center and a corresponding industry average cost drive cost,
when the difference is greater than a cost driver bound associated with the cost driver, generating an alert that indicates the cost of the cost driver is greater than the industry average cost drive cost, and
when the difference is less than a cost driver bound associated with the cost driver, generating an alert that indicates the cost of the cost driver is less than the industry average cost drive cost.

11 . The system of claim 7 , wherein determining the monetary impact of the cost drivers of the data center further comprises:
computing an industry average total VDC cost based on the total VDC costs of the cloud computing industry; for each cost driver of the cloud computing industry,
computing an industry average cost driver cost, and
computing an industry cost driver fraction based on the industry average driver cost and the industry average total VDC cost;
for each cost driver of the data center,
computing a normalized industry equivalent cost driver cost based the industry cost driver fraction of the cost driver and the total VDC cost of the data center,
computing the monetary impact based on the normalized industry equivalent cost driver cost and the cost driver,
when the monetary impact is greater than a monetary impact threshold, generating an alert that indicates overpayment of the cost driver, and
when the monetary impact is less than a monetary impact threshold, generating an alert that indicates underpayment of the cost driver.

12 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the cost drivers includes server hardware, licensing, maintenance, labor, network, and facilities.

13 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with machine-readable instructions that implement a method carried out by one or more processors of a computer system to perform the operations of
collecting costs of cost drivers and total virtual data center (“VDC”) costs of a cloud computing industry; computing cost driver industry benchmarks of the cloud computing industry based on the costs of the cost drivers; comparing costs of cost drivers of a data center with the cost driver industry benchmarks to determine which cost drivers of the data center are outside cost driver bounds; determining monetary impact of the cost drivers of the data center based the cost driver industry benchmarks and the total VDC costs of the cloud computing industry; and storing the costs of cost drivers and monetary impact of the cost drivers in

Assignees

• Vmware Inc

Inventors

• Shapsa Lior
• Negbi Mayan
• Kochavi Uri
• Yakar Nadav
• Swisa Elad
• Uliel Yochai
• Ginzburg Guy
• Meymann Yardena
• Janovski Ram

Classifications

• G06Q30/0206 Primary

  Price or cost determination based on market factors · CPC title

• H04L41/0246

  Exchanging or transporting network management information using the Internet; Embedding network management web servers in network elements; Web-services-based protocols · CPC title

• H04L43/08

  Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters · CPC title