Yearly/Monthly Billing

If you expect to use resources for a longer period, you can save money by selecting yearly/monthly billing. This section describes the billing rules for yearly/monthly DRS tasks.

Application Scenarios

If you want to ensure resource stability over a certain period of time, yearly/monthly billing is a good choice.
Real-time migration supports only the pay-per-use billing mode. Real-time synchronization and DR tasks support pay-per-use and yearly/monthly billing modes.

Billed Items

**Table 1** Items billed on a yearly/monthly basis
Billed Item	Description
Configuration fee (mandatory)	Configuration fees are generated when you use compute and storage resources and process data. In yearly/monthly mode, you need to make upfront payments on a yearly or monthly basis.
EIP fee (optional)	Data processing and data traffic fees generated by public network access. To create a task through a public network, you need to purchase an EIP.

If you want to purchase a single-AZ real-time synchronization task from MySQL to MySQL with the Medium specifications for a duration of one year and select Public network for Network Type for data synchronization, the prices will be displayed as follows:

Figure 1 Example prices

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

Billed Usage Period

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

It takes a certain time to create a DRS task. The billing starts from the Started time. You can view the Task Created time and Started time on the Basic Information page of a DRS task.

For example, if you purchased and started a one-month DRS task 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

Suppose you purchased and started a one-month DRS task on March 08, 2023, 15:50:04, and renewed the subscription for one more month before the initial subscription expired. The following usage periods will be billed:

March 08, 2023, 15:50:04 to April 08, 2023, 23:59:59
April 08, 2023, 23:59:59 to May 08, 2023, 23:59:59

You need to pay in advance for each billed usage period.

Price Change After Specification Change

If the specifications of a yearly/monthly DRS task no longer meet your needs, you can change the specifications on the console. The system will recalculate the price and either bill or refund you the difference.

If you upgrade your task specifications, you need to pay the difference in price.

Suppose you purchased and started a one-month single-AZ DRS task with the Medium specifications on April 08, 2023 and upgraded the task specifications to Large on April 18, 2023. The price of the Medium specifications was $168 USD/month, and that for the Large specifications was $249.6 USD/month. The price difference will be calculated as follows:

Price difference for the specification upgrade = Price for the new specifications × Remaining period - Price for the original specifications × Remaining period

The remaining period is the remaining days of each calendar month divided by the maximum number of days in each calendar month.

In this example, Remaining period = 12 (Remaining days in April)/30 (Maximum number of days in April) + 8 (Remaining days in May)/31 (Maximum number of days in May) = 0.6581. Cost of upgrade = $249.6 USD x 0.6581 – $168 USD x 0.6581 = $53.70 USD

For more details, see Pricing of a Changed Specification.

The prices in the example are only for reference. The actual prices are those displayed on DRS Price Calculator.
DRS allows you to select and change specifications for some specified synchronization and DR tasks. For details, see Specification Description.

Impact of Expiration

Figure 2 shows the statuses a yearly/monthly task can go through throughout its lifecycle. After a task is purchased and started, it enters the valid period and runs normally during this period. If the task is not renewed after it expires, before being deleted, it first enters a grace period and then a retention period.

Figure 2 Lifecycle of a yearly/monthly task

Expiration Reminder

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

Impact of Expiration

If your yearly/monthly task is not renewed after it expires, it changes to the Expired state and enters a grace period. During the grace period, you can access the DRS task but cannot perform operations such as changing task specifications.

If the yearly/monthly task 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 task while it is in the retention period.

If the yearly/monthly task is not renewed by the time the retention period ends, it will be released and data cannot be restored.

During the retention period, you cannot access or use your task but data stored in it can be retained. The retention period for the Huawei Cloud International website is 15 days.
During the grace period, you can access and use only some resources of your task. The grace period for the Huawei Cloud International website is 15 days.