Approach for determining an amount to bill a customer for the use of resources

A computer-readable medium carrying instructions for determining an amount to bill a customer for using and reserving computing resources, the instructions-including instructions which, when executed by one or more processors in a computer system, cause:

• determining usage data that indicates usage, by the customer during a specified period of time, of a set of one or more computing resources assigned exclusively to the customer, wherein over time, computing resources may be de-allocated from the set of one or more computing resources assigned exclusively to the customer and additional computing resources may be allocated to the set of one or more computing resources assigned exclusively to the customer from a plurality of computing resources;
• and
• determining the amount to be billed to the customer based upon the usage data, value data that specifies a number of service units that each computing resource from the set of one or more computing resources is capable of providing per unit time, and a reservation fee for reserving for the customer other computing resources from the plurality of computing resources that are not included in the set of one or more computing resources assigned exclusively to the customer.

A billing apparatus for determining an amount to bill a customer comprising:

• a memory configured to store usage data and value data, wherein the usage data indicates usage, by the customer during a specified period of time, of a set of one or more computing resources assigned exclusively to the customer, wherein over time, computing resources may be de-allocated from the set of one or more computing resources assigned exclusively to the customer and additional computing resources may be allocated to the set of one or more computing resources assigned exclusively to the customer from a plurality of computing resources and wherein the value data specifies a number of service units that each computing resource from the set of one or more computing resources is capable of providing per unit time;
• and
• a billing mechanism communicatively coupled to the memory and configured to determine the amount to bill to the customer based upon both the usage data, value data and a reservation fee for reserving for the customer other computing resources from the plurality of computing resources that are not included in the set of one or more computing resources assigned exclusively to the customer.