Pricing Models: Computing & Containers

Here’s how your monthly bill for computing and containers works

For the core offer of the Elastic Cloud Server, in addition to hourly pay-as-you-go models, there are also discounted reserved models available. These offer discounts to users of up to 60 percent on regular orders of resources over 12 or 24 months. Two discount models are available: monthly advance payments and prefinancing of the entire period (upfront). The upfront model offers the biggest discounts.

Table of contents
Elastic Cloud Server | Dedicated Host | Image Management Service | Cloud Container Engine

Elastic Cloud Server (ECS)

Pay-as-you-go

Generally speaking, in the hourly billing model only the time during which the ordered instances are active, i.e., running, is charged.
Note: If the instances are stopped, costs continue to be incurred for the connected Elastic Volume Storage (EVS) and Elastic IP! These need to be deleted separately. Flavors that already have an integrated disk or GPU will continue to be charged even if they are in the “stopped” state (bare metal servers, some high-performance flavors or disk-intensive flavors, and GPU flavors).
A separate billing item is created for each type of VM (flavor plus operating system): One s3 flavor with CentOS and one s3 flavor with Windows are accounted for separately, but multiple s3 flavors of the same type with Open Linux derivatives are not. The usage time of the individual VMs is recorded every second and added over the course of the calendar month. The total time in hours is then used for the invoice.

Example: Summation of usage time

In the course of June, you use several ECS instances of s2.xlarge.2 (4 vCPUs, 8GB RAM). One on June 10th for 2 hrs 30 mins, one on June 12th for 1 hr 30 mins, two on June 15th for 45 mins, one on June 20th for 12 hrs 15 mins.

2.5 h + 1.5 h + 2 x 0.75 h + 12.25 h = 17.75 h 17.75 hours are charged on the monthly bill.

Metering of consumption stops the moment the instance is no longer active, i.e., „stopped.“ It does not have to be deleted from the console. Use of the autoscaler does not change anything: If the autoscaler is used to start or stop instances, then this is charged as if it had been manually started.

Example: Pay-as-you-go

At 10:00 a.m. on April 1, you start an ECS instance s2.xlarge.4 (4 vCPUs, 16 GB RAM) with CentOS. At 9:00 a.m. on April 5, you start a second instance of the same type. Both instances run until 12:20 p.m. on April 10 and are then stopped. The basic cost for an instance is 20.1 cents/hour.

On November 11, you use an ECS instance s2.large.1 (2 vCPUs, 2GB RAM) for 3 hrs 30 mins. On November 12, you use two such instances for 1 hr 45 mins. On November 13, you use both instances together with a General Computing instance v2 s2.large.8 (2 vCPUs, 16GB RAM) for 2 hrs 20 mins. All instances are operated with an open Linux version.

Reserved

Reserved instances are not available for all flavors. The service description sets out the available instances. Reserved instances can be reserved for a period of 12 or 24 months. They are not fixed to a specific instance, but rather only to the instance type, and are billed even if the instance is inactive. Users acquire a credit balance corresponding to the uninterrupted use of an instance of the selected type for the chosen period. This credit balance is spread across the individual months of the contract term (days of each month x 24 hours). The contract term always starts at midnight on the order date. If a reserved package is ordered, the usage in the first month is billed proportionately (only the remaining days of the month in which the order occurred are billed). The same is valid for the last month of the duration of the package. Reserved packages are not renewed automatically: If the instance is not used for the full month, the unused contingent for that month is forfeited, nor can it be used later in the reserved period. However, it is possible to use two instances for partial periods during a month instead of using one instance for the entire period. The use of capacities in excess of the ordered amount is billed on top using the elastic model.

Example 1

On January 28, you reserve an ECS instance s2.xlarge.8 (4 vCPUs, 2GB RAM) for 12 months. In February, you use two ECS instances of that type ordered at the same time from 8:00 a.m., February 3 to 9:20 a.m., February 17. The time which exceeds the monthly contingent of 672 hours (2 h 40 min) is charged using the elastic model.

An upgrade to a larger instance type is possible at any time. It is also possible to switch from an old generation of ECS to a newer generation or a more powerful flavor during the term, e.g., from a c3 instance to a c4 or from s2 to c3. The contract term remains the same. The time already used for the reserved package is billed to the exact day using the old cost rate (daily rate of the monthly price x days passed). The new package is valid until the originally agreed end of term and is also billed to the day. The upgrade must be ordered via the service desk.

Example 2

You configure a ECS instance s2.large.4 (2 vCPUs, 8 GB RAM, SUSE Linux) in the Open Telekom Cloud and use this continuously from 8:00 a.m., May 2. Starting 9:00 a.m., May 15, you order a reserved package for this instance type that applies for 12 months with retroactive effect from midnight on May 15. At 10:00 a.m., June 1, a second instance of the same type is started to cover a spike in utilization (autoscaler). This is then stopped again after precisely 12 days. At 8:00 a.m., June 20, the first instance is started up again. At 5:00 p.m., July 29, the active instance is switched off.

In the reserved upfront mode, a fixed amount is billed at the start of the term. In contrast to the regular reserved models, it is not possible to switch to a larger instance or a new generation. In the subsequent months, the reserved upfront instances are also shown on the bill as a reserved upfront package, without being charged for. The credit balance depletes over the selected term, with the proportionate amount available each month (hours x days). The only difference from the example above is that the complete amount for 8,760 hours (365 days x 24 hours) is billed at the end of the month in which the order is placed.

Dedicated Host (DeH)

Dedicated hosts are also available on the Open Telekom Cloud. Within the technical parameters, several separate virtual machines (VMs) can be set up and modified on these reserved resources. The bill shows only the licenses for the VMs. No costs are incurred for open Linux. The same billing models for ECS also apply for dedicated hosts: elastic, reserved and reserved upfront, with the rates applicable for the hosts.

Image Management Service (IMS)

The use of the Image Management Service is free of charge. But when storing private images, the used object storage (OBS) is billed. These costs are integrated into the OBS invoice item. There are no traffic costs and the storage of public images is of course completely free of charge.

Cloud Container Engine (CCE)

The Cloud Container Engine (CCE) is also classified as a computing service on the Open Telekom Cloud. CCE is free for up to 50 nodes (not HA). If a larger cluster or an HA cluster is set up, there are hourly costs for using the service. CCE makes use of ECS instances, meaning those will also appear on the invoice when CCE is used. Reserved packages can also be ordered for the instances used by CCE. Since this service uses autoscaling, the exact demand should be determined in advance. Due to the flexible use of the contingent included in the reserved package, the model also harmonizes well with the cloud native CCE.

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