Internal Billing Details
How does Internal Billing for IBM Lotus Domino work?
Important questions for management are: where are our heavy end users located? How many hardware and network resources do we allocate? Do we provide the management of our Business Units with proper information about existing user demand? How do we solve certain performance issues? How do we define an optimized server consolidation plan?
These questions are being answered by a default DNA Health Check. For cost allocation purposes however, some IMPORTANT questions remain open; how can we charge the overall Total Cost of Ownership of our Lotus Notes environment to the Business on a USE=PAY basis? How can our IT department provide the optimal IT resources against the lowest costs? How can Corporate IT and the Business achieve the optimal balance between supply and demand?
The answers can be found with DNA Internal Billing for IBM Lotus Domino
With DNA Internal Billing, IT departments are able to charge the Business Units (and their end users) for the factual usage of Lotus Notes Messaging and Groupware. This is a major improvement compared with the common practice to charge for a static mail account and/or storage. The unique billing information provided by IT departments will extend and improve the relationship with the Business dramatically! Business Units get a better understanding of the allocation of their annual budgets. With DNA Internal Billing, IT decisions are driven by dynamic fact based management information. And the language is understandable for all disciplines; MONEY! Thru the USE=PAY method both the Business and Corporate IT become more and better communicating partners. Keywords in this new partnership will be: optimization, performance, efficiency, development and TCO reduction.
Service Overview
DNA Internal Billing for IBM Lotus Domino is a service (Not a software package that you purchase, have to install, learn and keep paying maintenance on). The service provides the customer on a weekly/monthly basis with billing information. The billing information is the result of a customizable billing model with parameters like user activity, replication traffic, network traffic, storage, fail-over, back-up, etc. The billing reporting can optionally be presented per user, per application owner, per organization unit (OU), per country or other.
For the execution of this service, Trust Factory will install a DNA server and a DNA Portal in the customer’s network. Both servers are remotely managed by Trust Factory over a secure external connection. The DNA server consists of the DNA Data Collector and the DNA Data warehouse. The DNA Portal consists of all reports which can be accessed by assigned staff members of the customer.
The engagement is fixed priced and based on the amount of users in the Names and Address book (NAB).
Billing Model
The billing model used by DNA Internal Billing for IBM Lotus Domino is extremely flexible and can be tailored for every single customer.
Generally two components are involved:
1. Cost Drivers (to supply the service)
Examples of Cost Drivers are hardware, software licenses, management/operations and network infrastructure. The total amount of Cost Drivers is the basis for the Total Cost to Recover (TCR).
2. Consumers (who use the service)
Examples of Consumers are the end users who send/receive mail and use applications. But also servers and databases responsible for system housekeeping, database replication and mail routing belong to the Consumers.
The above mentioned components are than placed in a formula with weight factors complying with the specific customers TCO situation, allowing the client to fine tune cost factors and allocation.
Deliverables
What does DNA Internal Billing for IBM Lotus Domino provide to the customer?
1. Weekly/Monthly reporting with billing information for the internal billing application
2. Weekly/Monthly reporting with billing information for business management
3. All reports available in spreadsheet format
4. Optionally health check reporting for IT staff and management
5. Reporting available on Internal DNA Portal
It's important to realize that besides the management information and the detailed source data which it is based upon (great for analyzing), Trust Factory presents concrete internal billing information as input for the existing internal billing application.
If you like to know more, please contact us and we will be glad to show you more.