Manage Organization Quotas

Quotas allow available resources to be assigned to organizations and organization members based on their business requirements. Either of the following quota types may be set for your organization:

  • a resource-based quota, which limits the number of vCPUs, the amount of RAM, and the amount of storage
  • a cost-based quota, which limits the total daily cost of services

All services assigned to an organization count against the organization's quota.

When configuring an organization, administrators can select the currency for all cost quotas for the organization. Users in a Service Portal role with Manage Organization permission can manage this organization by adding and editing user's quotas for this organization. When managing quotas, they’ll see the currency selected for the organization. All Service Portal users will see Quota Usage on the Dashboard and quota warnings in their preferred currency.

An organization manager can assign quotas to individual organization members. All services owned by an organization member (meaning that the organization member is primary owner of the service) count against that member's quota.

How quota works

This section explains how quota works. To implement quotas, see Assign quota to organization members.

Quota calculation and service requests

Quotas can be used to determine whether a service request (both new services and service changes) can be approved. For example, any service request that exceeds an organization's quota may be rejected automatically. Or, a second level of approval may be required for requests that will exceed quota.

Service requests are also included in quota usage calculations. In other words, quota is reserved for a member once a service request is submitted. Quota reservation ensures that quota calculations are accurate in situations where the approval or provisioning process may take a long time.

For example, if the organization Development has 2 CPUs remaining in its quota, and an organization member, Brian, has submitted a service change request to increase the CPU count for one of his VMs from 2 to 4, once his request is submitted, 2 CPUs are reserved for him, and the organization's quota has been reached. If Doug, another member of the Development organization, requests a VM with 2 CPUs, his request will exceed the organization's quota. Depending on the organization's approval process, Doug's request may be rejected or may need an additional level of approval. If Brian's request is later rejected, the reserved quota is released, at which point Doug's request will no longer exceed the organization's quota.

If a primary owner is specified on the request form, quota is reserved for the primary owner, not for the requester.

Example

Let's say the resources for your organization are limited to 20 CPUs, 80 GB of memory and 200 GB of storage. If your organization currently has four members, you can:

  • set identical quotas for each member (each member is limited to 5 CPUs, 20 GB of memory and 50 GB of storage)
  • set individual quotas for each member (one member is allowed up to 8 CPUs, and the other 3 are limited to 4 CPUs each)
  • allow each member to have up to the maximum available quota for the organization, by not setting member quotas (if two members have used up all 20 CPUs, the others will have no available quota)

Per-destination quota

An administrator may have configured distinct quota limits for each deployment destination available to a member or the organization. For example, distinct resource quota limits may be set for each destination. Or, a cost quota may be set for the Production destination, a resource quota for Staging and Development, and no quota limit for Lab.

If per-destination quota is configured, a Destination drop-down list appears at the top of the Users and Quotas page, allowing you to switch to another destination.

On the dashboard, members can view their quota usage for each destination where they, or their organization, own VMs.

Per-tier storage quota

If per-tier storage quota is configured for the organization, you can set an overall storage limit for a member, storage tier limits, or both. You can set per-tier storage quota for a member even if you don't set an overall storage quota for that member. When per-tier storage quota is configured, members see quota metrics in the Quota Usage Dashboard widget.

Users can click each graph to see which VMs are consuming resources. For example, clicking the SSD graph shown above displays a list of VMs consuming storage on the SSD storage tier. Users can also add the Tier Usage properties to the Details drop-down panel on the VM's Summary page to see the tier usage for an individual VM.

Quota and the media library

Your administrator may also have specified that media files in your organization's media folders will count towards your organization's resource or cost quota. The global media folder is never included in quota calculations. Member quotas aren't affected by media files. See Manage the Media Library for more information.

Assign quota to organization members

  1. Go to the Users and Quotas page.

    The organization's current quota usage is displayed, with warnings if the organization or one or more users has exceeded quota.

    The default value of Max Quota in the Max CPU, Max Memory, Max Storage and Max Cost columns indicates that all resources are available to a member until the quota limit for the organization is reached.

    If per-destination quota limits are configured, a Destination drop-down list at the top of the page allows you to switch to other destinations assigned to this organization. You can set quota limits for each member on each destination where quota is configured.

  2. Select one or more members and click Edit Quota from the Quota menu.

    You can't assign member quota to a directory services group. Member quotas can only be assigned to individual users (either local or directory services users).

  3. In the Edit Quota dialog, set member quotas as required.
    • If a resource quota is configured, enter limits for CPUs, memory and storage as required. You don't need to set values for all three.
    • If per-tier storage quota is configured, enter quota limits for storage tiers as required.
    • If a cost quota is configured, enter the maximum daily cost for the member.

    Click the Details or icon to view quota details that can help you set appropriate limits.

  4. To remove a quota limit, clear the value. The user will now have Max Quota.
  5. Click OK.
  6. If per-destination quota is configured, use the Destination drop-down menu to select another organization, and assign quota limits for each destination as required.

Assign equal quota to organization members

  • If a cost quota is configured, click Quota, and then click Balance CPU, Balance Memory or Balance Storage.
  • If a resource quota is configured, click Quota, and then click Balance Cost.

When members are added to the organization, they automatically have Max Quota, meaning that all resources are available to each member until the quota limit for the organization is reached. If you balanced the quota prior to adding new members, you must balance the quota again. Likewise, you must rebalance the quota after removing members.