Xref: utzoo news.sysadmin:2280 comp.misc:5785
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rice!uw-beaver!cornell!batcomputer!rpi!pawl5.pawl.rpi.edu!night
From: night@pawl.rpi.edu (Trip Martin)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin,comp.misc
Subject: Re: computer charge back
Message-ID: <1318@rpi.edu>
Date: 17 Apr 89 03:46:45 GMT
References: <885@hawkmoon.MN.ORG> <1989Apr16.020150.1083@utzoo.uucp>
Sender: usenet@rpi.edu
Organization: ECSE Dept, RPI, Troy, NY
Lines: 22

In article <1989Apr16.020150.1083@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>You might want to consider not charging for CPU time at all, provided it
>does not exceed some fraction of connect time.  Do you know how much
>CPU time you used in your editor to prepare your message?  Do your users
>have any idea how much CPU time they use in normal interactive work?
>Almost certainly not.  What you'll be presenting them with is a "mystery
>charge":  they won't have any idea of how to minimize it or how much
>a specific activity costs them.  This is distinctly user-hostile.

They can learn easily enough.  The default .cshrc (assuming csh is available)
could be set up to display cpu usage after every command in an understandable
format.  Users could be strongly encouraged to leave that feature enabled.

One thing that would be quite useful is a program which would show resource
usage in terms of real money, and to have it cumulative over the billing 
period.  That way users would quickly see what the real cost of their 
computing is.


Trip Martin
night@pawl.rpi.edu
night@uruguay.acm.rpi.edu