Service providers and device manufacturers (e.g., wireless, cellular, etc.) are continually challenged to deliver value and convenience to consumers by, for example, providing compelling network services. One area of interest has been the deployment of cloud or cluster based services for enabling users to remotely access a collection of distributed resources (e.g., computers, servers, databases) for processing data via a communication network. Typically, the cluster based service operates on segments of a dataset provided by the user concurrently, thus distributing the data processing task across multiple resources to increase data processing efficiency. It then reintegrates the data to produce a final output based on the processing needs specified by the user. A user or group thereof may access the cluster based service in order to handle large data processing, storage or enterprise application needs.
Billing for the cluster based service is usually calculated on a price per resource, per hour basis, and may further depend on the type or configuration of the resource requested (e.g., large versus small server). Unfortunately, per this model, a cluster based service utilized for 10 minutes will still be billed to the user as it if were used for an hour; even though no further data processing tasks remain to be executed by the service. Still further, in the case where the user is a member of a group that shares access to the service, there is currently no convenient means of provisioning the service amongst members to enhance service utilization while controlling costs.