Sun Microsystems and SchlumbergerSema has announced a
partnership to give outsourcing clients the chance to pay for the
computing resources they use as opposed to having to agree to an
upfront fixed price.
Sun will provide server computing resources and storage capacity
to Schlumberger under a pay-per-use model. Schlumberger will, in
turn, do the same for its outsourcing clients.
The Sun servers that SchlumbergerSema will use to provide these
pay-per-use outsourcing services are hosted in SchlumbergerSema
datacentres.
Use is calculated using a formula developed by Sun which takes
an average of server CPU utilisation and disc storage and divides
it into "power units".
Sun's goal is to hone its measuring capabilities to the point
where customers can be billed for individual transactions at the
application level.
"We're on that road but not yet there," said Ashif Dhanani,
director of Sun's utility computing marketing. He estimated it
would take Sun about two years to achieve that goal.
The collaboration of software suppliers will be key in being
able to measure use at the application level, said Stephen Holmes,
global marketing manager for datacentre outsourcing at
SchlumbergerSema.
The suppliers will target companies in the energy, finance,
telecommunications and government sectors.
Sun and Schlumberger struck a similar agreement two years ago
which required clients to commit to a minimum volume of processing
resources. That minimum volume was four CPUs on a large Unix
server.
This latest agreement lowers the minimum to "a fraction of a
CPU" and, unlike the previous deal, accommodates not only surges in
demand but also reductions, Dhanani said.
Juan Carlos Perez writes for IDG News Service