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<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">I think the
situation described by Doug is what most OpenStack newcomers are
facing. TBH, the company I work for(Catalyst IT Ltd, a NZ based
open
source company) run into the same challenge, so we had to cook
something in our kitchen and are currently running it for our
cloud
service. The difference is we created it as a 'Rating' instead of
'Billing' system, since we understand that most companies already
have something in place as the ^real^ billing system (in our case
OpenERP).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">We see this rating
project as bridge between Ceilometer and whatever systems people
are
using to do the billing/invoicing. All the commercial sensitive
information and business rules are kept in the billing system (for
example: OpenERP). The rating project only raises the 'sales
orders /
bills / invoices' based on the usage reported by Ceilometer on a
given period. In our case this back-end is pluggable, allowing
organizations to integrate with their existing ERP systems or even
generate invoices in the form spreadsheets if they don't have one.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">Anyway, I believe
there is a real requirement for a rating system in OpenStack, no?
Consider these projects [1][2][3][4] and cyclops/cloudkitty
mentioned
in this loop. And I would like to refer the charts presented by
Nicolas Barcet about Ceilometer [5], which defined something like
below.
Obviously, there is still a gap for rating at least(after almost 2
years), which can be an independent service or an advanced
plugin/service of Ceilometer (like LBaaS for Neutron, depending on
the scope).</p>
<br>
<b>Metering</b> --
Collect usage data
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%"><b>Rating</b> --
Transform usage data into billable items and calculate costs</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%"><b>Billing</b> --
Create
invoice, collect payment</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">So it seems the
question is changing from '/do users need a rating system?/' to
'/Would OpenStack benefit from having an out-of-box rating
project?/'. I would say yes, why not. More and more companies are
trying to leverage OpenStack as a public/private cloud solution
and
charge their customers, so it would be great if there is an
out-of-box rating solution from OpenStack community. Besides, like
Eoghan suggested, it would be great to have a rating/billing
session
in Paris . Before that, I would like to suggest some regular IRC
meetings to discuss this topic to work out the goal, scope, key
use
cases and roadmap.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">Our suggestion for
the first IRC meeting is 25/August 8PM-10PM UTC time on
Freenodes's
#openstack-rating channel.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">Thoughts? Please
reply with the best date/time for you so we can figure out a time
to
start.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">Cheers.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">[1] Dough
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/lzyeval/dough">https://github.com/lzyeval/dough</a></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">[2] trystack.org
billing <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/trystack/dash_billing">https://github.com/trystack/dash_billing</a></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">[3] nova-billing
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/griddynamics/nova-billing">https://github.com/griddynamics/nova-billing</a></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">[4] billingstack
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/billingstack">https://github.com/billingstack</a></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">[5]
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ytYhQGR5SxoccZ-wuza2n0H2mS7HniP9HoFDUpuGDiM/edit#slide=id.g1f73edb4_0_2">https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ytYhQGR5SxoccZ-wuza2n0H2mS7HniP9HoFDUpuGDiM/edit#slide=id.g1f73edb4_0_2</a><br>
</p>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 09/08/14 06:13, Doug Hellmann wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:4FDB2772-D08C-4C04-898C-E258946FFA24@doughellmann.com"
type="cite">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<br>
<div>
<div>On Aug 8, 2014, at 3:34 AM, Piyush Harsh <<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:harh@zhaw.ch">harh@zhaw.ch</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>Dear Eoghan,<br>
<br>
</div>
Thanks for your comments. Although you are
correct that rating, charging, and billing
policies are commercially sensitive to the
operators, still if an operator has an
openstack installation, I do not see why the
stack could not offer a service that supports
ways for the operator to input desired
policies, rules, etc to do charging and
billing out of the box. These policies could
still only be accessible to the operator.<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I think the point was more that most deployers we talked to
at the beginning of the project already had tools that managed
the rates and charging, but needed the usage data to feed into
those tools. That was a while back, though and, as you say,
it’s quite possible we have new users without similar tools in
place, so I’m glad to see a couple of groups working on taking
billing integration one step further. At the very least
working with teams building open source consumers of
ceilometer’s API will help us understand if there are any ways
to make it easier to use.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Doug</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<br>
</div>
Furthermore, one could envision that using heat
together with some django magic, this could even
be offered as a service for tenants of the
operators who could be distributors or resellers
in his client ecosystem, allowing them to set
their own custom policies.<br>
<br>
</div>
I believe such stack based solution would be very
much welcome by SMEs, new entrants, etc.<br>
<br>
</div>
I am planning to attend the Kilo summit in Paris,
and I would be very glad to talk with you and others
on this idea and on Cyclops :)<br>
<br>
</div>
Forking the codebase to stackforge is something which
is definitely possible and thanks a lot for suggesting
it.<br>
<br>
</div>
Looking forward to more constructive discussions on this
with you and others.<br>
<br>
</div>
Kind regards,<br>
</div>
Piyush.<br>
<br>
<div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all">
<div>
<div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family:arial
narrow,sans-serif">_______________________________________<br>
Dr. Piyush Harsh, Ph.D.<br>
Researcher, InIT Cloud Computing Lab<br>
Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW)<br>
[Site] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://piyush-harsh.info/" target="_blank">http://piyush-harsh.info</a><br>
[Research Lab] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.cloudcomp.ch/" target="_blank">http://www.cloudcomp.ch/</a><br>
Fax: +41(0)58.935.7403 GPG Keyid: 9C5A8838</span><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 12:01
AM, Eoghan Glynn <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:eglynn@redhat.com" target="_blank">eglynn@redhat.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class=""><br>
<br>
<br>
> Dear All,<br>
><br>
> Let me use my first post to this list to
introduce Cyclops and initiate a<br>
> discussion towards possibility of this
platform as a future incubated<br>
> project in OpenStack.<br>
><br>
> We at Zurich university of Applied Sciences
have a python project in open<br>
> source (Apache 2 Licensing) that aims to
provide a platform to do<br>
> rating-charging-billing over ceilometer. We
call is Cyclops (A Charging<br>
> platform for OPenStack CLouds).<br>
><br>
> The initial proof of concept code can be
accessed here:<br>
> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://github.com/icclab/cyclops-web"
target="_blank">https://github.com/icclab/cyclops-web</a>
&<br>
> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://github.com/icclab/cyclops-tmanager"
target="_blank">https://github.com/icclab/cyclops-tmanager</a><br>
><br>
> Disclaimer: This is not the best code out
there, but will be refined and<br>
> documented properly very soon!<br>
><br>
> A demo video from really early days of the
project is here:<br>
> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIwwVxqCio0"
target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIwwVxqCio0</a>
and since this video was made,<br>
> several bug fixes and features were added.<br>
><br>
> The idea presentation was done at Swiss Open
Cloud Day at Bern and the talk<br>
> slides can be accessed here:<br>
</div>
> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://piyush-harsh.info/content/ocd-bern2014.pdf"
target="_blank">http://piyush-harsh.info/content/ocd-bern2014.pdf</a>
, and more recently the<br>
<div class="">> research paper on the idea was
published in 2014 World Congress in Computer<br>
> Science (Las Vegas), which can be accessed
here:<br>
> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://piyush-harsh.info/content/GCA2014-rcb.pdf"
target="_blank">http://piyush-harsh.info/content/GCA2014-rcb.pdf</a><br>
><br>
> I was wondering, if our effort is something
that OpenStack<br>
> Ceilometer/Telemetry release team would be
interested in?<br>
><br>
> I do understand that initially
rating-charging-billing service may have been<br>
> left out by choice as they would need to be
tightly coupled with existing<br>
> CRM/Billing systems, but Cyclops design
(intended) is distributed, service<br>
> oriented architecture with each component
allowing for possible integration<br>
> with external software via REST APIs. And
therefore Cyclops by design is<br>
> CRM/Billing platform agnostic. Although
Cyclops PoC implementation does<br>
> include a basic bill generation module.<br>
><br>
> We in our team are committed to this
development effort and we will have<br>
> resources (interns, students, researchers)
work on features and improve the<br>
> code-base for a foreseeable number of years
to come.<br>
><br>
> Do you see a chance if our efforts could make
in as an incubated project in<br>
> OpenStack within Ceilometer?<br>
<br>
</div>
Hi Piyush,<br>
<br>
Thanks for bringing this up!<br>
<br>
I should preface my remarks by setting out a little
OpenStack<br>
history, in terms of the original decision not to
include the<br>
rating and billing stages of the pipeline under the
ambit of<br>
the ceilometer project.<br>
<br>
IIUC, the logic was that such rating/billing
policies were very<br>
likely to be:<br>
<br>
(a) commercially sensitive for competing cloud
operators<br>
<br>
and:<br>
<br>
(b) already built-out via existing
custom/proprietary systems<br>
<br>
The folks who were directly involved at the outset
of ceilometer<br>
can correct me if I've misrepresented the thinking
that pertained<br>
at the time.<br>
<br>
While that logic seems to still apply, I would be
happy to learn<br>
more about the work you've done already on this, and
would be<br>
open to hearing arguments for and against. Are you
planning to<br>
attend the Kilo summit in Paris (Nov 3-7)? If so, it
would be a<br>
good opportunity to discuss further in person.<br>
<br>
In the meantime, stackforge provides a
low-bar-to-entry for<br>
projects in the OpenStack ecosystem that may, or may
not, end up<br>
as incubated projects or as dependencies taken by
graduated<br>
projects. So you might consider moving your code
there?<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Eoghan<br>
<div class=""><br>
<br>
<br>
> I really would like to hear back from you,
comments, suggestions, etc.<br>
><br>
> Kind regards,<br>
> Piyush.<br>
> _______________________________________<br>
> Dr. Piyush Harsh, Ph.D.<br>
> Researcher, InIT Cloud Computing Lab<br>
> Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW)<br>
> [Site] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://piyush-harsh.info/" target="_blank">http://piyush-harsh.info</a><br>
> [Research Lab] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.cloudcomp.ch/" target="_blank">http://www.cloudcomp.ch/</a><br>
> Fax: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="tel:%2B41%280%2958.935.7403"
value="+41589357403">+41(0)58.935.7403</a> GPG
Keyid: 9C5A8838<br>
><br>
</div>
> _______________________________________________<br>
> OpenStack-dev mailing list<br>
> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org">OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org</a><br>
> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev"
target="_blank">http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev</a><br>
><br>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
OpenStack-dev mailing list<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org">OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org</a><br>
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target="_blank">http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
_______________________________________________<br>
OpenStack-dev mailing list<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org">OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org</a><br>
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</blockquote>
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<br>
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<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
OpenStack-dev mailing list
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</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Cheers & Best regards,
Fei Long Wang (王飞龙)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senior Cloud Software Engineer
Tel: +64-48032246
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:flwang@catalyst.net.nz">flwang@catalyst.net.nz</a>
Catalyst IT Limited
Level 6, Catalyst House, 150 Willis Street, Wellington
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