I'm designing a Web-service in Azure. Is it possible to have the actual Azure platform usage costs metered per end-user? And does Azure provide billing services to end-users?
A:
I'd check out www.cloudsplit.com
Not sure if its fully open yet though.
steve
2010-08-17 18:35:36
Hmm, not much information on their site so I can't see whether it would be able to do what I need.
Peladao
2010-08-17 19:25:00
+2
A:
The Windows Azure billing model today focuses on billing the owner of the service account - there are no provisions for a pass-through reselling type of billing.
The recommended model for selling applications and services running on Windows Azure today is to set up a new Windows Azure account for/with your client and deploy your Windows Azure service or web application into the client's Windows Azure account. The client pays Windows Azure directly for time, storage, and bandwidth they use, and the client pays you separately for developing or maintaining the application.
This model is workable if your client is a business that wants to use your Azure software to support thousands of their customers - each client business would have their own Azure account. This model does not work if your software is a single user application such as a personal tax package or solitaire card game that you are selling to individual end users.
dthorpe
2010-08-17 18:48:08
So the service would need to be deployed separately for each user? That seems inconvenient.
Peladao
2010-08-17 19:21:01
Yes, it's inconvenient, but that's how you can deploy software and bill the usage to a specific client today. The alternative is to build your own usage accounting system within your app and do the billing yourself - not a small undertaking and potentially a huge waste of time given that it seems likely that Microsoft will offer some sort of pass-through reselling of services tailored to VARs eventually.
dthorpe
2010-08-17 20:02:29
Not for each user - for each billable client. If you are selling a web store application that will support thousands of users for a single client, it makes sense that each client (business) should have their own Azure account to host their online store. However, if you are selling a personal tax package or solitaire game or other "single user" application, creating a new Azure account for each user is not the right solution.
dthorpe
2010-08-17 20:06:31
+1
A:
As everyone has said, Azure does not support any billing or web service for billing however on codeplex you can find an example/ sort of infrastructure for your own billing.
The default implementation includes support for PayPay..
Anyway.. it may help...
Here is what the intro says:
Cloud Provisioning & Billing (CPB)
Project Description
Cloud Provisioning & Billing (CPB) is simple yet powerful web application allowing service providers to expose their Windows Azure Platform services and resources to their customers.
CPB enables two major business scenarios:
- Resell Windows Azure Platform services and resources along with value-added services developed by the provider
- Give provider's customers an ability to customize provider's applications before they are deployed in Windows Azure Platform
spgennard
2010-08-17 22:22:32
A:
The answer "The Windows Azure billing model today focuses on billing the owner of the service account - there are no provisions for a pass-through reselling type of billing." is pretty much the bottom line at this point.
As noted there are the software possibilities listed above, but I have one additional point to add.
In SaaS Style Solutions one needs to break out cost as you suggest. What needs to be done is to break out the costs, and associate them to events within the application, possibly as a cross cutting concern that is very loosely coupled to the actual application. Then tracking can be done at your level, for the multi-tenancy of the application. One also has to be careful in Windows Azure, as multi-tenant applications that install per user are a tricky thing to gauge, monitor, and price without a very thorough review of the pricing and how the architecture will affect that pricing.
Good luck on getting that figured out. I've been working up some basic pricing architectures and it is a rather complex mix of things depending on how the architecture is deployed.
Adron
2010-08-25 16:05:26