Billing information and where to find more details
Each partner/research group that has a Sandbox must cover their own computing and storage costs. The costs are based on general Google Cloud prices with FinnGen specific discount. Ballpark costs can be estimated using Google Cloud's Pricing calculator.
Billing of the cost happens through:
partner organizations' own existing Google Cloud accounts
or monthly invoicing by FIMM/University of Helsinki.
The billing method is agreed with the Sandbox owner when the environment is first created.
Cost related to the amount of computations
Computation costs are related to the processors and memory consumption. When starting up a Sandbox Interactive Virtual Machine (IVM) the user can choose which size of IVM to use:
As an example GWAS run via the Custom GWAS tool costs ~3-10€ per run depending on the size of the analysis.
Shutting down the Sandbox IVM after use will cut down your cost significantly. A Sandbox IVM that is idle for two days will be shut down automatically. Note that automatic shutdown may be compromised by background processes.
Cost related to storage
Permanent disk storage (Sandbox IVM home folder): ~0.03€/GB/month. By default, every user has 11 GB home folder.
Data stored to buckets by user eg. to /finngen/red, /finngen/green etc.: ~0.02€/GB/month.
As an example, a Sandbox with 5 users with a standard home disks of 11 GB without any computing costs less than ~2€ per month.
Monitoring the cost
Your Sandbox contact person can monitor the Sandbox costs. This monitoring happens differently based on which invoicing method is in use. In Sandboxes linked to Google Cloud accounts, the costs can be monitored directly from the Google Cloud billing account.
If the billing is based on invoices issued by FIMM/University of Helsinki, the cost monitoring happens through the Sandbox billing report which can be created by your Sandbox contact person. The billing method is agreed with the Sandbox owner when the environment is first created.
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