Billing rules for Cloud Storage Gateway

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This topic describes the billing for Cloud Storage Gateway, including billable items, billing methods, and overdue payments.

Billable items

Cloud Storage Gateway includes online gateways and on-premises gateways. The billable items for each type are different.

Online gateways

Billing for online gateways is based on gateway specifications, cache type, and Internet bandwidth. Both pay-as-you-go and subscription billing methods are supported. The fees for the two billing methods are calculated as follows:

  • Pay-as-you-go: Hourly gateway fee = Hourly price of the gateway specification + Cache capacity (GB) × Price per GB/hour + Internet bandwidth (Mbps) × Price per Mbps/hour.

  • Subscription: Monthly/Yearly price = Monthly/Yearly price of the gateway specification + Cache capacity (GB) × Monthly/Yearly price per GB + Internet bandwidth (Mbps) × Monthly/Yearly price per Mbps.

Note

By default, Internet bandwidth is not enabled for a gateway. To use the gateway or the express synchronization feature across regions, you must select an Internet bandwidth. The system provides up to 5 Mbps of bandwidth for free. No bandwidth fees are charged if the bandwidth is 5 Mbps or less.

CSG on CloudBox

You purchase the CloudBox hardware resources outright, and Alibaba Cloud only charges for the gateway software license.

Cross-zone high availability file gateways

Billing for cross-zone high availability file gateways is based on gateway specifications, cache type, and Internet bandwidth. Only the pay-as-you-go billing method is supported. The fees are calculated as follows:

  • Pay-as-you-go: Hourly gateway fee = (Hourly price of the gateway specification + Cache capacity (GB) × Price per GB/hour + Internet bandwidth (Mbps) × Price per Mbps/hour) × 2.

    Note
    • If the gateway specifications, cache capacity, and Internet bandwidth are the same, the fee for a cross-zone high availability file gateway is twice that of a Basic Edition file gateway.

    • Cross-zone high availability file gateways do not currently support cross-region use. Therefore, only 5 Mbps of bandwidth is provided for free, and no additional bandwidth fees are charged.

On-premises gateways

For on-premises gateways, you are responsible for providing the virtual machine and cache resources. Alibaba Cloud only charges for the gateway software license.

Other fees

Using Cloud Storage Gateway incurs other fees in addition to the billable items for the gateway.

  • OSS usage fees

    You own the OSS resources used by Cloud Storage Gateway. OSS charges you for fees that are generated when the gateway accesses OSS. These fees include storage, traffic, requests, and data retrieval.

    • Storage fees: Files written to the gateway are uploaded to OSS and consume OSS storage space.

    • Traffic fees: If you select an internal network OSS Endpoint, no read or write traffic fees are generated. If you select an Internet OSS Endpoint, outbound Internet traffic fees are generated when you read files from the gateway.

    • Request fees: Uploading and downloading files through a file gateway or iSCSI gateway generates request fees. If remote sync is enabled for a file gateway, the gateway retrieves the file list and metadata from the OSS bucket when you browse folders, which generates request fees. An iSCSI gateway uploads data in fixed-size segments. For large files, this generates many segments and corresponding request fees.

    • Data retrieval fees: These are fees for the volume of data read from the OSS server-side. The data volume transferred over the Internet is also billed as outbound Internet traffic. For the Archive storage class, you use the RESTORE operation to restore data. After the data is restored, data retrieval fees are charged based on the actual amount of data restored. If you call RESTORE again after the data is restored, no more data retrieval fees are charged.

      Note

      Data retrieval fees apply only to the Infrequent Access and Archive storage classes of OSS.

  • SLS usage fees

    If you enable the Log Monitoring service for Cloud Storage Gateway, system logs are pushed to your specified Simple Log Service (SLS) Logstore. Fees that are generated by gateway access are charged to you by SLS.

  • KMS usage fees

    If you enable the server-side encryption feature for OSS, OSS calls the KMS API to perform operations such as querying, generating, encrypting, and decrypting data keys.

    Fees that are generated by gateway access to KMS are charged to you by KMS.

  • OSS transfer acceleration usage fees

    If you enable the transfer acceleration feature for a share, the gateway's Internet bandwidth is fully utilized to increase the data transfer speed in cross-region scenarios. Fees that are generated by gateway access to OSS are charged to you by OSS.

  • Message Service (formerly MNS) usage fees

    The express synchronization feature depends on Alibaba Cloud Message Service (MNS). Therefore, using express synchronization incurs related fees.

    The fees for MNS consist of two parts: topics and queues, and are billed daily. Each express synchronization group is billed as one topic. Each share added to the synchronization group is billed as one queue. If the number of API calls is less than 20 million, the price of each topic is CNY 2 per day, and the price of each queue is CNY 0.5 per day. For example, if you create one synchronization group and add two shares to it, the monthly fee is (2 + 0.5 × 2) × 30 = CNY 90.

Billing methods

Cloud Storage Gateway supports two billing methods: pay-as-you-go and subscription.

Pay-as-you-go

This method bills you based on the formula: Actual usage × Unit price. Every hour, the actual usage of the previous hour is calculated, and the fee is deducted from your account balance. For example, if the current time is 09:30, the fees generated from 08:00 to 09:00 are settled.

Note

The billing system currently has a delay. You may not be able to view the bill for the previous hour immediately. For example, at 09:30, you might see the bill for the 07:00–08:00 period.

Subscription

The subscription billing method is more cost-effective than pay-as-you-go for a given billing cycle.

Resources that support subscription:

Resource

Description

Cloud Storage Gateway

When creating a Cloud Storage Gateway, determine whether to use the subscription billing method for the gateway resources.

Cache

If a subscription Cloud Storage Gateway requires a cache disk, you must purchase a subscription cache disk.

  • Purchase a Cloud Storage Gateway

    • When you create a Cloud Storage Gateway, set the Billing Method to Subscription.

      Note
      • On the Cloud Storage Gateway (Subscription) page, you only need to select a billing cycle.

      • You can enable auto-renewal on the Cloud Storage Gateway (Subscription) page.

  • Purchase a cache

    Note

    A cache disk is dependent on a specific gateway. The billing cycles of the cache and the Cloud Storage Gateway may be inconsistent. For example, you purchase a subscription gateway at the beginning of the month and an additional subscription cache in the middle of the month. Assume you purchase both for one month. When the subscription gateway expires at the beginning of the next month, if you delete it or it is automatically released upon expiration, the cache disk is also released. The remaining balance is not refunded.

Switch between billing methods

After you create a pay-as-you-go Cloud Storage Gateway, you can switch its billing method to subscription to obtain a better price.

Note

You can switch the billing method for a Cloud Storage Gateway only when it is in the Running state.

  1. Log on to the Cloud Storage Gateway console.

  2. On the Gateway List page, find the desired Cloud Storage Gateway and choose More > Switch to Subscription.

  3. On the Cloud Storage Gateway (Subscription) page, select a billing cycle and click Buy Now.

    Note

    On the Cloud Storage Gateway (Subscription) page, select a billing cycle. Do not modify the other configuration items.

  4. Complete the payment as prompted on the page.

Overdue payments

After a Cloud Storage Gateway has an overdue payment, its service status changes as follows:

  • For a Cloud Storage Gateway deployed in a data center

    • If you have an overdue payment but are within the service suspension protection quota, your service is not suspended.

      Note

      Alibaba Cloud provides the extended suspension-free benefit. When a pay-as-you-go resource is overdue, you can continue to use cloud services for a certain amount or duration. Normal fees apply during the extended period. For more information, see Extended Suspension-Free Benefit.

    • If you have an overdue payment that exceeds the service suspension protection quota, the Cloud Storage Gateway service stops automatically. However, your on-premises Cloud Storage Gateway continues to be charged for the license fee, and the overdue payment accumulates.

    • If you pay the overdue amount within 15 days after the service is stopped, the Cloud Storage Gateway service is automatically restored.

    • If you do not pay the overdue amount within 15 days after the service is stopped, you are considered to have voluntarily given up the Cloud Storage Gateway service. Alibaba Cloud will terminate the terms of service for this product and stop providing the service. Your on-premises Cloud Storage Gateway resources are released, and you can no longer access the Cloud Storage Gateway.

  • For a Cloud Storage Gateway deployed on Alibaba Cloud

    • If you have an overdue payment but are within the service suspension protection quota, your service is not suspended.

      Note

      Alibaba Cloud provides the extended suspension-free benefit. When a pay-as-you-go resource is overdue, you can continue to use cloud services for a certain amount or duration. Normal fees apply during the extended period. For more information, see Extended Suspension-Free Benefit.

    • If you have an overdue payment that exceeds the service suspension protection quota, the Cloud Storage Gateway service stops automatically. However, the data stored on the Cloud Storage Gateway cache disk continues to incur fees, and the overdue payment accumulates.

    • If you pay the overdue amount within 15 days after the service is stopped, the Cloud Storage Gateway service is automatically restored.

    • If you do not pay the overdue amount within 15 days after the service is stopped, you are considered to have voluntarily given up the Cloud Storage Gateway service. Alibaba Cloud will terminate the terms of service for this product and stop providing the service. All your data stored on Alibaba Cloud will be cleared and deleted. The data cannot be recovered after it is cleared. Note that billing continues until the data is cleared. If you confirm that you no longer want to use the Cloud Storage Gateway service, you must delete the data on the Cloud Storage Gateway cache disk.

Refund policy

  • For pay-as-you-go Cloud Storage Gateways, billing stops after you delete the gateway.

    Note

    Fees that have already been generated are not refundable after billing stops.

  • For subscription Cloud Storage Gateways that have not expired, you can request a refund. For more information, see Unsubscribe from a product.

Query bills

You can view your bills in Expenses and Costs on the Bill Details page. For Product Name, select Cloud Storage Gateway.