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This concept answers to many issues Gandi faced. * Being "cloud-ish" and have a pay-as-you-go system * Computing a price to use a 256MB of RAM for 3 hours in r

by mz23in 13y ago

This concept answers to many issues Gandi faced. * Being "cloud-ish" and have a pay-as-you-go system * Computing a price to use a 256MB of RAM for 3 hours in real currency was too complicated (like, for example : 0.0000174€) * Having no surprise at the end of the month, as some hosting providers compute the global use and bill the consumption at the end of the month (you may have surprise) * Using credits, to create a new server, adding a new network interface, etc, you do not need to buy 'resources' like it was before * There are two interfaces : historic usage of credits by resources, display the credits consumption as what you use in real currency * No multiple expiration date by product/resource * ... Many of those advantages are described here : http://wiki.gandi.net/en/iaas/references/billing/credits http://wiki.gandi.net/en/iaas/references/billing/credits As usual, any enhancement/improvement is welcome :-)

eli 13y ago
I get what you're saying, but other providers (e.g. Amazon) manage to solve this problem without prepaid credits.
idupree 13y ago
I prepay for many services that are still able to list prices in real currency: https://www.fastmail.fm/ https://www.fastmail.fm/ https://www.tarsnap.com/ https://www.tarsnap.com/ https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ The latter two do keep track of fractional charges. They deduct $0.01 from prepaid credits once that much is owed. Since you accept multiple currencies, this becomes a bit more complex but still doable. For example, let the user choose the currency to display, or pick a single standard currency (euros?) and use it as your units. Tarsnap and NFSn choose to refund your prepaid credits if and only if you close your account with them. Not every prepaid system lets you get your prepayments back at all. I am fine with this: I am willing to pay a bit more (prepayment without refund) in order to limit my liability to the amount I intend to pay.

by mz23in 13y ago

eli 13y ago

I get what you're saying, but other providers (e.g. Amazon) manage to solve this problem without prepaid credits.

idupree 13y ago

I prepay for many services that are still able to list prices in real currency: https://www.fastmail.fm/ https://www.fastmail.fm/ https://www.tarsnap.com/ https://www.tarsnap.com/ https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ The latter two do keep track of fractional charges. They deduct $0.01 from prepaid credits once that much is owed. Since you accept multiple currencies, this becomes a bit more complex but still doable. For example, let the user choose the currency to display, or pick a single standard currency (euros?) and use it as your units. Tarsnap and NFSn choose to refund your prepaid credits if and only if you close your account with them. Not every prepaid system lets you get your prepayments back at all. I am fine with this: I am willing to pay a bit more (prepayment without refund) in order to limit my liability to the amount I intend to pay.