DESPITE VENDOR CLAIMS to the contrary, 31% of Storage readers engage in some sort of chargeback for storage--a significant number. And of the 69% who don't currently do chargeback, 32% are looking into it.

Capacity usage is by far the most important metric readers use to bill for storage, with 91% citing its use. Forty-eight percent use "tier of storage," making it a distant second. Service-level agreements and backup schedules are used more sporadically, by 38% and 30% of respondents, respectively.

Overall, chargeback has a positive or neutral effect on storage consumption. Fifty-six percent of respondents report no change in consumption, and 35% say that chargeback encourages users to consume less. However, 9% report that their internal users actually consume more storage under their chargeback policies.

Long-time chargeback practitioners sing its praises. According to one respondent who's been charging for shared storage for six ...

But readers also see a lot of obstacles to chargeback. It means more work for administrators and there's a lack of effective tools to measure consumption. Other important obstacles are cultural issues and accounting. "We feel expenses should be accounted for company-wide, and no one should be wasting time or any type of resources on chargebacks to internal departments," writes one reader. "We're one big community/company; chargeback seems like laying blame," writes another.

--Alex Barrett

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