An automated metering technology announced by
Hewlett-Packard this week builds on the company's efforts to give
users the ability to pay for hardware based on actual measured
usage.
But companies will need to buy at least four of HP's high-end
Superdome servers and commit to using at least a quarter of the
overall capacity on each to be eligible for the new metering
product.
The metering capability will let users align their hardware
costs with actual system utilisation, said Irv Rothman, chief
executive of HP's financial services organisation, which will
deliver the technology to users.
It will allow users to keep extra capacity available at hand but
pay for the capacity only when it is actually used.
"It enables customers to lower their total cost of ownership and
enhance their return on IT," Rothman claimed.
The metering system expands upon technology that HP has offered
since the rollout of its first Superdome servers in late 2000.
Earlier HP pay-per-use metering products kept track only of whether
a CPU was on or off and provided a monthly usage average on that
basis.
The latest version sits behind a company's firewall and
determines how much of a CPU's power is being used every five
minutes. A monthly average is calculated, and customers are billed
based on average percentage of CPU power used.
All of the CPU utilisation data is automatically collected,
encrypted and transmitted to an HP billing engine without any user
intervention or administrative overhead.
"If a user operates at maximum, this pay-per-use percentage
utilisation offering is no more expensive than a standard 36-month
contract," Rothman said.