Help Center> Distributed Database Middleware> Billing> Billing Modes> Pay-per-Use Billing
Updated on 2023-12-14 GMT+08:00
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Pay-per-Use Billing

Pay-per-use billing means you pay nothing up front and are not tied into any contract or commitment.

This section describes the per-pay-use billing rules of DDM.

Application Scenarios

Pay-per-use billing is good for short-term, bursty, or unpredictable workloads that cannot tolerate any interruptions, such as applications for e-commerce flash sales, temporary testing, and scientific computing.

Billing Items

The following table lists billing items of pay-per-use DDM instances.

Table 1 Items billed on a yearly/monthly basis

Billing Item

Description

Billing Factor

Billing Formula

(Mandatory) DB instance

Instance specifications include vCPUs, memory, and the number of nodes.

vCPUs, memory, and number of nodes

Instance types of different specifications provide different compute and storage.

Specifications unit price x Required duration x Number of nodes

See Specifications in DDM Pricing Details.

(Optional) EIP bandwidth
  • DDM instances can be accessed through a public network, and traffic fees are generated accordingly.
  • You are not charged for the traffic generated in the cloud.

EIPs are required if your resources need to access a public network.

Billing items: bandwidth fee, traffic fee, and IP address retention fee. EIP for a pay-per-use DDM instance: billed by bandwidth, traffic, or shared bandwidth. You are also charged for IP reservation if you do not bind the EIP to any instance.

Billed by fixed bandwidth

For details about the unit price, see EIP Pricing Details.

Assume that you want to purchase a general-enhanced DDM instance with 8 vCPUs and 16 GB of memory in the CN-Hong Kong region. The DDM instance contains two nodes and is available for one month. At the bottom of the Buy DDM Instance page, you can view price details.

Figure 1 Example prices

The prices in the figure are just examples. The actual prices are those displayed on DDM Price Calculator.

Billed Usage Period

Pay-per-use DDM instance usage is calculated by the second and billed every hour. The billing starts when the DDM instance is launched and ends when the DDM instance is deleted.

It takes a certain time to create a DDM instance. The billing starts from the Completed time on the Instant Tasks page in the task center.

For example, if you purchased a pay-per-use DDM instance at 8:45:30 and deleted it at 8:55:30, you were billed for the 600 seconds from 8:45:30 to 8:55:30.

Billing Examples

Assume that you purchased a pay-per-use DDM instance (instance specifications: 8 vCPUs, 16 GB of memory, and 2 nodes) at 10:00:30 on April 18, 2023 and then deleted it at 10:45:46 on April 18, 2023. The following usage period will be billed:

Usage of 2,716 seconds from 10:00:30 to 10:45:46 (between 10:00:00 and 11:00:00)

The prices displayed in the pricing details are per hour, so you need to divide it by 3,600 to obtain the price for each second and then multiple the per-second price by the total number of seconds.

Table 2 Billing formulas

Resource Type

Billing Formula

Unit Price

Instance specifications (vCPUs and memory)

Specifications unit price x Required duration x Number of nodes

For details, see DDM Pricing Details.

EIP bandwidth

Billed by fixed bandwidth

NOTE:

If your pay-per-use EIP has no instance bound, you will be billed for the EIP reservation price.

See EIP Pricing Details.

shows the billing calculation.

The price in the figure is for reference only. The actual prices are subject to DDM Pricing Details.

Figure 2 Billing calculation example for a pay-per-use instance (in CN-Hong Kong)

Price Change After Specification Change

If you change the instance specifications of a pay-per-use DDM instance, the original order will become invalid and a new order will be placed. You will be billed based on the new instance specifications.

If you change the instance specifications within a given hour, multiple records will be generated. Different records record the billing for different instance specifications.

Assume that you purchased a pay-per-use DDM instance (8 vCPUs | 16 GB) at 9:00:00 and changed the instance specifications to 16 vCPUs | 32 GB at 9:30:00. Two billing records were generated from 9:00:00 to 10:00:00.

  • DDM instance (8 vCPUs | 16 GB) usage from 9:00:00 to 9:30:00
  • DDM instance (16 vCPUs | 32 GB) usage from 9:30:00 to 10:00:00

Impacts of Arrears

Figure 3 shows the statuses a pay-per-use DDM instance can have throughout its lifecycle. After a DDM instance is purchased, it enters the valid period and runs normally during this period. If your account goes into arrears, the DDM instance enters a grace period and then a retention period.

Figure 3 Lifecycle of a pay-per-use instance

Arrears Reminder

The system will bill you for pay-per-use DDM instances after each billing cycle ends. If your account goes into arrears, we will notify you by email, SMS, or in-app message.

Impacts of Arrears

If there is no top-up account with sufficient balance and no other payment method configured to pay for the resources used, your account goes into arrears, and the pay-per-use DDM instance enters the grace period. You are still responsible for expenditures generated during the grace period. You can view the charges on the Billing Center > Overview page and pay any past due balance as needed.

If you do not bring your account balance current before the grace period expires, the DDM instance status turns to Frozen and it enters a retention period. You cannot perform any operations on a pay-per-use DDM instance in the Frozen status.

If you do not bring your account balance current before the retention period ends, your instance will be released, and data cannot be restored.

  • During the retention period, you cannot access and use your DDM instance but data in the instance will be retained. The retention period for Huawei Cloud International website is 15 days.
  • During the grace period, you can access and use only some resources of your DDM instance. The grace period for Huawei Cloud International website is 15 days.
  • For details about top-up, see Topping Up an Account.
Parent topic: Billing Modes