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5. Chargeback Accounting

LSF Analyzer can be used to perform chargeback accounting by generating tabular reports and invoices. The chargeback accounting uses the same statistics as LSF Analyzer reports, but a cost is associated with the use of each resource. You can determine the costs associated with a set of users or projects, over a specified time range.

About Chargeback Reports

Chargeback reports contain all of the following elements:

Title
user-specified title displayed on the report (optional)

Format
method of displaying the information (Report or Invoice format)

Who to Charge
who or what will be charged for resource usage (Users or Projects)

Rates
costs associated with the use of each resource

Resources to Charge For
one or more resources to account for in the report

Report Range
the period of time over which the charges are calculated

Reports and Invoices

A chargeback report shows the costs of resources used by individual users or projects, and also the total costs of resources used, in a table format.

A set of invoices is just a different way of displaying the same information contained in a report. An invoice gives the cost of resources used by individual users or projects. One invoice is generated for each user or project included in the report.

Invoices may be used for billing purposes. The tabular format may be used for comparison purposes, and to summarize and archive periodic reports.

Chargeback Resources

LSF Analyzer can generate chargeback reports for any combination of resources. The resources for which chargeback accounting is done are listed below.


Resource	Description	Unit
Elapsed Time	The wall clock time from the start of a job to its end. This is useful if you want to charge for the actual time a job is running in the cluster. This time includes any suspension of a job by the person who submitted the job.	seconds
CPU Time	The CPU time used by the job. This is useful if you want to charge for the actual use of CPU resources by a job. Computation-intensive jobs will be charged more than other types of jobs.	seconds
Memory	The maximum resident memory used by the job, multiplied by the elapsed time. This is useful if you want to charge for the maximum resident memory used by the job during its run time.	KB-seconds
Swap	The maximum virtual memory used for the job, multiplied by the elapsed time. This is useful if you want to charge for the total size of the core images used by a job during its run time.	KB-seconds

Chargeback Rates

By default, LSF Analyzer gets chargeback rates from the lsb.charge.rate configuration file, located in the LSF_MISC directory of the cluster. You can easily view or change the rates by clicking the Rates button in the New Chargeback Report dialog or Modify Chargeback Report dialog.

This basic formula is used to calculate the cost of a particular resource:

number of units used * resource charge rate

When you set the rates, you must specify the currency. The charge rate can be specified for each separate resource. The unit of measurement associated with each resource cannot be changed.

Generating Chargeback Reports

To create a new chargeback report, take the following steps:

Choose Tools | Chargeback.
In the New Chargeback Report dialog, specify the following elements:

title (optional)
format (Report or Invoice)
who to charge (Users or Projects)
what resource usage to charge for
resource rates (Rates button; optional)
report range

Click OK.

Modifying Chargeback Reports

To modify the current chargeback report or invoice, take the following steps:

In the Chargeback Report dialog, click the Modify button.
In the Modify Chargeback Report dialog, make any changes you want.
Optional. If you want to change the rates charged for resources, click the Rates button. Make changes to the Rates dialog, then click OK
Click OK in the Modify Chargeback Report dialog.

Printing Chargeback Reports

To print the current chargeback report, take the following steps:

Click Print on the Report dialog.
In the Print dialog, specify printing parameters, then click OK.

Printing Chargeback Invoices

To print chargeback invoices, take the following steps:

Select a user name from the User list.
Click Print on the Invoice dialog.
In the Print dialog, specify printing parameters, then click OK.

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