Chargeback

Excessive storage use stems from poor awareness of the costs involved. Raising awareness encourages efficiency – delivering invoices requires it.

Implementing a system of internal billing with Northern Storage Suite (through NSS: Storage Chargeback) allows you to:
- Highlight the importance of efficient storage use.
- Stop storage costs from disappearing into the overall IT budget.

Below you will find a comprehensive list of the chargeback features within Northern Storage Suite:

The view of existing chargeback jobs within NSS: Storage Chargeback.

Billing for storage use highlights the true costs involved:

• File system analysis - invoice or report according to storage use
• Exchange mailbox analysis - invoice or report depending on mailbox size
• Quota analysis - invoice or report according to quota size
• User level reporting/billing - send individual users an invoice or a cost report
• Group level reporting/billing - send department managers an invoice or a cost report
• Path level reporting/billing - send reports and invoices to project managers and customers
• HSM reporting/billing - send on both costs and savings associated with HSM to cost centers
• Open format outputs - calculation output is stored in MS SQL, and can also be exported to MS Excel and CSV

Granular pricing schemes match real-world business models:

• Multi-tiered billing classes - use a flat pricing scheme or one where different usage thresholds trigger escalated costs
• Pricing to match device types - charge a premium for high end storage and encourage infrequently used data to be kept on low end devices
• Base cost - charge a start-up fee to cover administrative overhead

Scheduled reports offer financial analysis:

• Identify cost growth patterns - the fastest growing user, group or path
• Identify budget viability - forecast budget exhaustion dates according to current trends

All the projections available in NSS: Storage Chargeback.