Updated on 2024-06-12 GMT+08:00

Billing Modes

Direct Connect supports the yearly/monthly billing mode. Yearly/Monthly is a prepaid billing mode. You pay in advance for a subscription term, and in exchange, you get a discounted rate. The longer the subscription term, the bigger the discount. Yearly/Monthly billing is a good option for long-term, stable services. This section describes the billing rules for yearly/monthly connections.

Application Scenarios

If you want to ensure resource stability over a certain period of time, yearly/monthly billing is a good choice for the following types of workloads:

  • Long-term workloads with stable resource requirements, such as official websites, online malls, and blogs
  • Long-term projects, such as scientific research projects and large-scale events
  • Workloads with predictable traffic bursts, for example, e-commerce promotions or festivals
  • Workloads with high data security requirements

Billed Items

Direct Connect provides standard connections, hosted connections, and full-service connections.

  • Billed items of a standard connection or full-service connection: port, one-time setup for connecting the leased line to the port provided by Huawei Cloud, leased line, and in-building cabling
  • Billed item of a hosted connection: leased line

The port is billed on a yearly/monthly basis.

Table 1 Billed items

Billing Item

Description

Port

The port is billed based on its specifications.

Billed Usage Period

A yearly/monthly connection is billed for the purchased duration. The billing starts when you activated or renewed the subscription, and ends at 23:59:59 of the expiry date.

For example, if you purchased a one-month connection on March 08, 2023, 15:50:04, the billed usage period is from March 08, 2023, 15:50:04 to April 08, 2023, 23:59:59.

Billing Examples

Assume that you purchased a yearly/monthly connection (port type: 10GE) at 15:50:04 on July 8, 2023 for one month and manually renewed the connection for one month before it expires. The following usage periods will be billed:

  • Jul 08, 2023, 15:50:04 to Aug 08, 2023, 23:59:59
  • Aug 08, 2023, 23:59:59 to Sep 08, 2023, 23:59:59

You will be billed for both usage periods

Impact of Expiration

Figure 1 shows the statuses a yearly/monthly connection can go through throughout its lifecycle. After a connection is purchased, it enters the valid period and runs normally during this period. If the connection is not renewed after it expires, before being deleted, it first enters a grace period and then a retention period.

Figure 1 Lifecycle of yearly/monthly connections

Expiration Reminder

The system will send you a reminder (by email, SMS, or in-app message) 7 days before a yearly/monthly connection expires to remind you to renew the subscription.

Impact of Expiration

If a yearly/monthly connection is not renewed after it expires, it changes to the Expired state and enters a grace period. During the grace period, you can access Direct Connect but cannot change the bandwidth of the connection.

If the connection is not renewed after the grace period ends, its status turns to Frozen and it enters a retention period. You cannot perform any operations on the resource while it is in the retention period.

If the connection is not renewed after the retention period expires, it will be released and data cannot be restored.