Cloud Storage & Compute
What is SDSC Cloud Storage and Compute?
The SDSC Research Data Services (RDS) team administers one of the first large-scale academic deployments of cloud storage in the world. UC San Diego campus users, members of the UC community, and UC affiliates are eligible to join the hundreds of users who already benefit from the 3 petabytes of raw space, which is organized into object-based cloud storage by OpenStack’s Swift platform.
SDSC Cloud Storage is the perfect storage choice for researchers with fixed budgets because unlike other cloud providers, SDSC features a simplified recharge plan that eliminates secondary fees such as bandwidth costs, charges assessed per request, and regional migration fees.
Advantages of SDSC Cloud include:
- Collaboration - effortlessly share cloud data with colleagues or the public
- Redundancy - with three copies of each file distributed across multiple internal racks, rest assured that your data is reasonably safe from the perils of normal hardware exhaustion
- Technical Support - communicate directly with SDSC Cloud Storage engineers, who enjoy using their extensive experience to assist you
In addition to storage, SDSC Cloud now includes compute options. Users can spin up instances on demand. Email services@sdsc.edu for more information.
Note: SDSC offers a separate cloud storage system for data that needs to meet PHI/PII or HIPAA compliance. Explore SHERLOCK for secure solutions.
How Much Does SDSC Cloud Storage and Compute Cost?
| Service | Unit | UC Rate | External Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud Storage Minimum allocation 1 TB; billed monthly storage use is averaged by monitoring space used hourly | TB/month | $32.16/TB/month | $46.632/TB/month |
Cloud Compute | Hour | $0.08/SU | $0.116/SU |
Recharge rates are subject to change with approval from the UC San Diego Recharge Rate Committee. IDC is exempt for UC San Diego users of SDSC Cloud, effective October 10, 2017.When developing budgets for new research proposals, if the eligible cloud computing services are associated with the extramurally funded research, please include these costs in the modifications made to calculate the modified total direct costs (MTDC) so that IDC costs are not added to the proposed budget. Read more about MTDC. Please see https://blink.ucsd.edu/technology/cloud/indirect-cost-exemption.html for more details.
SDSC Cloud Compute Additional Cost Details
Cloud compute is billed by hours of use of each instance. SDSC Cloud Compute On-Demand pricing is $0.0314/vCPU/hour and $0.0007/GB of memory/hour. More powerful instances or instances with increased storage cost more to run.
Instance Prices
|
Instance Name |
vCPU Count |
Memory Count (GB) |
System Disk (GB) |
UC Recharge Rate ($/hour) |
External Recharge Rate ($/hour) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
m1.medium |
1 |
4 |
20 |
$0.0342 |
$0.1026 |
| m1.large | 2 | 8 | 20 | $0.0684 |
$0.2052 |
| m1.xlarge | 4 | 16 | 20 | $0.1368 |
$0.4104 |
| m1.2xlarge | 8 | 32 | 20 | $0.2736 |
$0.8208 |
| c1.large | 2 | 4 | 20 | $0.0656 |
$0.1968 |
| c1.xlarge | 4 | 8 | 20 | $0.1312 |
$0.3936 |
| c1.2xlarge | 8 | 16 | 20 | $0.2624 |
$0.7872 |
| r1.large | 2 | 16 | 20 | $0.0740 |
$0.2220 |
| r1.xlarge | 4 | 32 | 20 | $0.1480 |
$0.4440 |
| r1.2xlarge | 8 | 64 | 20 | $0.2960 |
$0.8880 |
Recharge rates are subject to change with approval from the UC San Diego Recharge Rate Committee. IDC is exempt for UC San Diego users of SDSC Cloud, effective October 10, 2017.When developing budgets for new research proposals, if the eligible cloud computing services are associated with the extramurally funded research, please include these costs in the modifications made to calculate the modified total direct costs (MTDC) so that IDC costs are not added to the proposed budget. Read more about MTDC. Please see https://blink.ucsd.edu/technology/cloud/indirect-cost-exemption.html for more details.
Instance Storage Prices
20 GB of ephemeral disk storage is provided with each instance at no additional cost. Additional storage for images, volumes, snapshots and instances that boot from volume will be charged.
|
Type |
UC Recharge Rate |
External Recharge Rate |
|---|---|---|
|
Volume and Volume Snapshot |
$0.000063/GB/hour |
$0.00009135/GB/hour |
| Image | $0.000063/GB/hour | $0.00009135/GB/hour |
Recharge rates are subject to change with approval from the UC San Diego Recharge Rate Committee. Normal IDC rules apply.
How Do I Get SDSC Cloud Storage and Compute?
Send a request to the SDSC Research Data Services team at services@sdsc.edu.
Where Can I Get Support for SDSC Cloud Storage and Compute?
Answers to common questions can be found in the support section of this site:
Questions can also be submitted to SDSC storage engineers by emailing support@sdsc.edu.