How to check for metering changes before upgrading vCloud Usage Meter

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

Preview for metering changes in vCloud Usage Meter before upgrading to a later version.

Environment

VMware vCloud Usage Meter 4.x
VMware vCloud Usage Meter 3.6.x

Resolution

To preview for metering changes in a vCloud Usage Meter instance, run a side-by-side metering comparison of two vCloud Usage Meter instances - one running an upgraded version and another running a previous version. The two instances must be configured to meter the same infrastructure.

Prerequisites

To check for any metering changes before upgrading to a later version, you need to have the following:

1. A deployed vCloud Usage Meter 3.6.1 or 4.x. We will name it UM-PROD.
2. The vCloud Usage Meter is registered in Production mode in the VMware Commerce Portal. 
3. VMware products added for metering to UM-PROD in the vCloud Usage Meter web interface.

Note:  If you are using vCloud Usage Meter 3.6.1 and want to compare its metering with vCloud Usage Meter 4.x, then you need to set its time zone to UTC. This is needed to avoid a metering difference with vCloud Usage Meter 4.x. It is recommended that you set your vCloud Usage Meter 3.6.1 time to UTC before creating another test vCloud Usage Meter 4.x instance with which you will compare the collected usage data.
 

Pre-upgrade metering comparison

The following procedure helps you compare the metering of two Usage Meter instances with the same version.

To compare metering before upgrade:

1. Deploy another vCloud Usage Meter with the same version as UM-PROD. We will name it UM-TEST. For example, if UM-PROD has been deployed as version 4.2, then UM-TEST must also be the same version.
2. Register UM-TEST in the VMware Commerce portal, but this time in Test mode. The Test mode helps you evaluate the metering of your vCloud Usage Meter without sending the data to the VMware Commerce Portal. This way, only UM-PROD will have its collected data appear in the VMware Commerce Portal, and you won’t be charged twice.
3. Add the same products for metering in UM -TEST as those added to UM-PROD. For example, if you have added VMware Cloud Director 10.2 and VMware Horizon DaaS 9.0.1 in UM-PROD, add the same products in UM-TEST.

Note: Ensure you have accepted the certificates of all registered products, and the connection to the products is OK. This applies to both vCloud Usage Meter instances.

4. Wait until one full reporting cycle completes so that the two usage meters collect enough usage data, which will be compared.
5. Verify that both Usage Meter instances produce similar VM History reports in vCloud Usage Insight.

Post-upgrade metering comparison

The following steps help you compare the metering of an upgraded vCloud Usage Meter with another vCloud Usage Meter with an older version.

Note: To compare the meeting of your upgraded vCloud Usage Meter with a previous vCloud Usage Meter version, then you need to upgrade the instance on the first day of the reporting month so that both appliances report data for the same period.

To compare metering after upgrade:

1. Upgrade or migrate UM-TEST to a later version. See for reference: In-Place upgrade of vCloud Usage Meter 4.x   and Migration from vCloud Usage Meter 3.6.1 to vCloud Usage Meter 4.x to learn how to do it.

​Note: The in-place upgrade procedure applies to vCloud Usage Meter 4.x. You can migrate your product configuration from vCloud Usage Meter 3.6.1 to vCloud Usage Meter 4.x.
 

Note:  vCloud Usage Meter does not support the migration of license categories. After migrating from vCloud Usage Meter 3.6.1 to vCloud Usage Meter 4.x, the license category set in vCloud Usage Meter 3.6.1 will not be saved. After the migration, it will be set by default to Rental. For example, if your license category before the migration was set to Perpetual, it will be automatically set to Rental after the migration. This will result in a metering difference if not changed manually to the initially set license category.

2. Wait until one full reporting cycle completes to ensure both UM-PROD and UM-TEST collect enough usage data from the added products.
3. Verify that both UM-PROD and UM-TEST produce similar VM History reports in Cloud Partner Navigator (Usage & Commerce ->Usage->Download All Reports). Check the table below to learn about the differences in the metering of the different vCloud Usage Meter versions.
4. If the reports are not similar, do the following:

• See vCloud Usage Meter Release Notes for changes in metering.
• Check VMware Interoperability Matrix to learn which products and versions are metered by a selected vCloud Usage Meter release.
• Open a service request with the VMware Global Support Services team if the above two steps do not reveal the cause for the metering discrepancy.

5. If satisfied with the report comparison, upgrade the UM-PROD instance, remove UM-TEST or keep it for the next upgrade testing.

 

Additional Information

Metering differences in vCloud Usage Meter releases

The following table compares the metering of the following vCloud Usage Meter releases – 3.6.1, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7.

 

VMware Product	Usage Meter 3.6.1	Usage Meter 4.1	Usage Meter 4.2	Usage Meter 4.3	Usage Meter 4.4	Usage Meter 4.5	Usage Meter 4.6	Usage Meter 4.7
vCenter	Provides metering of vSAN and SRM.	Does not provide metering of vSAN and SRM.	Does not provide metering of vSAN and SRM.	Provides metering of vSAN and SRM.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	Provides metering of CPU packets and sockets. This change helps the calculation of CPU cores per vCenter Server for Cloud Editions.
VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)	-	-	Meters only core CPUs by the month based on the highest VCF edition selected in the month.	Provides time-based metering for core CPUs and vRAM.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.
vSAN	Raid 5/6 Erasure Coding feature detection is inaccurately detected and metered as vSAN Standard edition. IOPS Limit is detected as an Advanced feature.	-	-	IOPS Limit is detected as a Standard feature. Detects VMs that are compliant with Storage Policy - Raid 5/6 Erasure Coding. When one or more VMs in a vSAN-enabled cluster are compliant with this policy, customers are billed at vSAN Advanced edition. Meters Data-at-rest Encryption and File Services features that are marked under vSAN Enterprise. vSAN Enterprise edition replaces vSAN Standard with an Add-on.	No difference in the metering.	Data at Rest Encryption is metered as Data Encryption in Usage Meter 4.3 and 4.4. Meters the following new vSAN features: vSAN Standard: - Shared Witness - Cloud Native Storage vSAN Enterprise: - HCI Mesh - Data in Transit Encryption	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.
Site Recovery Manager (SRM)	Metering of uni-direction protection VM count. Does not meter multiple failover sites. Does not meter replicated VMs of a failover site.	-	-	Supports only metering of protected VMs in Ready state. Provides metering of bi-direction protection VM count. Meters multiple failover sites. Meters failover site VMs.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Service (TKGs)	-	-	-	Average capped billed vRAM usage for all TKGs-related powered-on VMs per Tanzu license edition. OR Average host core usage for all hosts with at least one powered-on TKGs-related VM per Tanzu license edition.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Multi-cloid (TKGm)	-	-	-	-	-	-	TKGm VM usage is reported as either the average capped billed vRAM or the average number of CPU cores used for the month depending on the provider's selection in the Usage Meter web application. The usage metric can be changed throughout the month. The TKGm usage is reported against any of the following licenses: Tanzu Basic, Standard, or Advanced. Note: Currently, if Tanzu Advanced is selected, then it will be reported as Standard.	No difference in the metering.
VMware Aria Operations (formerly vRealize Operations)	Calculates the number of VMs based on the number of monthly collections. When vROps Enterprise Edtion is reported as part of bundles, the metering is based on GBvRAM. vROps Standard and Advanced editions are reported as standalone, and metering is based on the number of VMs.	The highest license edition is taken. Calculates the number of VMs based on  the number of hours in a month. If used for the whole month, there will be no difference in metering compared to Usage Meter 3.6.1. vROps Chargeback edition is reported under Flex Core. All other editions are reported as an add-on or standalone based on the provider's preference.	The same as Usage Meter 4.1.	The same as Usage Meter 4.1.	The same as Usage Meter 4.1.	License groups are detected for vROps 8.6 or later. The highest edition applied to the license group is reported by Usage Meter; If there are no license groups, the highest license edition used for that vROps is reported. If a VM is part of multiple license groups, Usage Meter detects the highest edition of the first queried license group.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.
NSX-V	SW L2 Bridging to Physical Environment metered as an Advanced feature. Dynamic Routing with ECMP (Active-Active) metered as an Advanced feature.	SW L2 Bridging to Physical Environment metered as a Base feature. Dynamic Routing with ECMP (Active-Active) metered as a Base feature.	No difference in metering.	No difference in metering.	No difference in metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.
NSX-T	-	-	Meters the following NSX-T features: NSX Base: - Distributed switching and routing (Base), -Edge Load Balancing (DLB), - Dynamic Routing with ECMP (ECMP), -SW L2 Bridging to physical environment, Distributed Firewall (SWL2), -Network Address Translation (NAT), -Virtual Private Network using IPSEC (IPSEC), - Edge Firewall (aka Gateway firewall) (GFW); NSX Professional: - Distributed Firewall (DFW), - Layer 2 VPN (aka "Remote Gateway") (L2VPN); NSX Advanced: - 3rd party service insertion (DFW3), -Identity firewall (aka "Integration with Active Directory") (DFW_AD), - Context-aware Firewall with Layer 7 (DFWL7),  - URL Filtering (as part of a firewall) (URL), - Container networking (NCP), - Kubernetes VM in vSphere PKS cluster (PKS);	Meters all the NSX-T features metered in Usage Meter 4.2 plus the following:   NSX Base: - IPv6 Layer 3 forwarding (IPV6STATIC); NSX Professional: - Tier-0 router configured as VRF (VRF); NSX Advanced: - Multi vCenter Network and Security (MVC), - IPv6 Layer 3 forwarding and bgp configured on corresponding Tier-0 router (IPV6DYN);   NSX Enterprise Plus: - NSX intelligence appliance (NSXINT), - Tier-0 router configured with EVPN (EVPN);	No difference in metering.	New metered features:   NSX Advanced: - NSX Distributed IDS (IDS_STANDALONEHOST) -Integration with Distributed Firewall (IDFW), - IPv6 Dynamic Routing and Dynamic IPv6 Allocation and Services (IPV6DYN)*; NSX Enterprise Plus: - NSX Federation (FED);	No difference in the metering.	The NSX feature Multi-vCenter Network and Security is metered if a VM is connected to a network overlay spanning multiple vCenter Servers.
NSX Advanced Load Balancer	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Average CPU cores per service engine group (when used with VCD) or average CPU cores per cluster for a month (when standalone) reported against the detected license (Enterprise only when used with VCD and Basic and Enterprise for standalone deployments)
Cloud Director	No difference in metering. Reported under bundles.	-	No difference in the metering. Reported under Flex Core.	No difference in the metering. Reported under Flex Core.	No difference in the metering. Reported under Flex Core.	No difference in the metering. Reported under Flex Core.	No difference in the metering. Reported under Flex Core.	No difference in the metering. Reported under Flex Core.
Cloud Director Availability	vCloud Director Availability version 4.0 is metered by vCloud Usage Meter 3.6.1 HotPatch 4 or higher, and vCloud Director Availability 4.01 is metered by vCloud Usage Meter 3.6.1 HotPatch 5 or higher. vCloud Availability 3.0 and 3.5 are metered by vCloud Usage Meter 3.6.1 HotPatch 3 or higher.	-	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	New feature metered: - vCenter to vCenter Cloud replications (migrations and protections)	vApp Templates are metered as normal VMs.
VMware Aria Automation 7.X (formerly vRealize Automation)	The initial license edition is collected once.	-	-	VM count is timed-based and changes based on the actual license edition (the license edition is collected hourly).	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.
VMware Aria Automation 8.x (formerly vRealize Automation)	-	-	-	-	-	-	Detected as part of vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager. Managed and unmanaged VMs by vRA are reported. Managed VMs are VMs of a vCenter that is registered with Usage Meter. Unmanaged VMs are VMs that are Azure, Google Cloud, AWS VMs, or VMs of a vCenter not registered with Usage Meter. The vRealize Automation 8.x usage is reported either as a standalone (average number of VMs) or as an Add-on (GBvRAM) depending on the provider’s preference. The metric can be changed throughout the month, as the latest applied will be used for billing. Note: If you also use vRealize Operations as part of the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager, then its usage will be reported separately. Note: If you use vRealize Automation and VCF, then the managed VMs by VRA which are also managed by VCF will not be reported separately. This applies to the following VCF editions: VCF Advanced, VCF Enterprise, VCF Advanced w/o vSAN, and VCF Enterprise w/o vSAN. When vRealize Automation 8.X and VCF for SDDC Manager license are used, then vRealize Automation 8.x usage will be reported separately.	No difference in the metering.
VMware Aria Operations for Networks (formerly vRealize Network Insight)	-	-	Reported as a standalone product or as an add-on. When vRealize Network Insight is reported as a standalone product, then the metering is per VM or OSI per Month. The usage is calculated as the average hourly count of non-unique VMs in the month. When vRNI is reported as a Flex Add-on product, then the metering is an average used GBvRAM per Month.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in metering.	No difference in metering.
Horizon DaaS	What is being metered and reported is the maximum number of Desktop VMs under management for VDI and the maximum number of sessions under management for RDSH.	-	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in the metering.	No difference in metering.	No difference in metering.
Horizon	-	-	-	-	-	The monthly average number of concurrent connections to Horizon Connection Server per license edition.	No difference in metering.	No difference in metering.

*Enhanced metering in Usage Meter 4.5.