In a previous blog post, we walked through How to Signup for the Flex Pricing Model. Now let’s walk through how to submit monthly reports. The Flex Pricing Model is a new consumption model that replaces the old bundles that have been around for years. They give partners much more flexibility in how they consume VMware technology and help them create the services for their customers.
Let’s go over a couple tidbits before first:
vCloud Usage Meter Support – In the past, the Usage Meter appliance needed to be updated to report new bundle changes. This time around, that is not the case. Partner still need to run Usage Meter 3.6 and up, but do not need to update the appliance for Flex Model reporting.
Translation of Old Bundle data to Flex Model – Each month when you report your monthly usage, you will still input data using the old bundle names into your monthly report in the Business Portal.The Business Portal will then translate the bundle data to Flex Pricing Model for you. For partners in the VCPP before Flex was GA, they will be provided Price Protection for bundles with a price difference.
vCloud Usage Insight + Flex – Although Usage Insight is not necessary for Flex reporting, it does fill in the report for you so that you do not have to. This is still a huge advantage, especially for partners with more than one Usage Meter appliance in their environments.
End-User Reporting – Not available in Flex Pricing Model at this time.
With that out of the way, let’s walk through submitting a report in the business portal on the Flex Pricing Model. We will be inputing the data into the monthly report as if we are a partner that is not currently using vCloud Usage Insight. For partners that have adopted automatic reporting, go ahead and skip to step 2!
Step 1: Open and Fill out your Report
It’s the beginning of the month and it’s time to submit your monthly licensing consumption usage. You open up your monthly report as you always do. Let’s enter the bundle based data into the report like you have done every month. The old bundle names are still there, no worries.
Take note the total points in the top right of the screenshot, this report shows a total of 20,500 points before translation. I reported a little bit of every single bundle to help show how Core Bundle an Add-On usage is aggregated regardless the combination of old bundles used.
Step 2: Review the Translated Usage
Once you click next, you will be taken to the Rental Flex Usage page (Flex Translation). On this page, the business portal shows the usage based on how it would appear if you aggregated the Core bundle and Add-On products separately. On this page you can see that the total usage from the previous page matches the translation page. These fields will be greyed out as you cannot edit a calculated number.
Take note of how there are duplicates of the usage from the same products. There is a second SKU for the same add-on but with a lower Points Per Unit. This is the 3 Year Price Protection for partners that were already in VCPP. If you click on the information icon for the Flex Core Bundle, you can see how much vSphere usage came from each of the bundles that were reported. This shows the total aggregate of Core Bundle.
To see an add-on product’s aggregate usage after translation, like vRealize Operations Manager, you can also click on the information icon and see which bundles contributed to that add-on’s usage.
Step 3: Submit the Report
Go ahead and click next on the translation page and you will be taken to the summary page. Here you will see information about total cost based on your contract. You are now ready to close out the report and submit the usage on to your aggregator. Congrats, you’ve completed your Flex Pricing Model report. That wasn’t too bad, was it?
If you have any feedback or additional questions, feel free to reach out to your Aggregator, VMware Representative or VCPP Operations. We will be presenting more vmLive webinars throughout 2019 to provide partners with enablement.
