Open Telekom Cloud for Business Customers

Pricing Models: Storage

Detailed explanation of individual storage variant price structures
 

Basic information for storage services

The Open Telekom Cloud offers five storage types: Elastic Volume Service (EVS, block storage – always linked to virtual machines), Object Storage Service (OBS), Cloud Server/Volume Backup Service (CSBS/VBS), Storage Disaster Recovery Services (SDRS), and Scalable File Storage (SFS). The pricing models vary between the object storage and the block-storage offers (EVS, VBS). In general, object storage is VM-independent and a more cost-effective storage option, whereas block storage enables fast data access thanks to a directly connected virtual hard drive.

The reference period here is also the relevant calendar month. The average volume of allocated storage is determined (in GB, 1 GB = 1,073,741,824 Byte) and used as the basis for billing. In the block storage option, prices rise on a linear basis in line with the data volume. For object storage, prices are based on (discounted) stepped scales. The scales are of specific sizes and stack on top of each other. The higher the scale, the lower the costs for the storage volumes allocated in that scale. The exception to this rule is that the basic volume of 5 GB for standard object storage is free of charge.

Graphic of the total costs
 

Criteria

OBS

EVS / VBS

CALCULATION BASIS

amount of data

allocated storage / backup volume

Access options

access from internet

no access from the internet / direct connection to ECS VM

Price pattern

declining scaled prices

fixed / GB - linear

Cost of Request

cost per request

inclusive

Special Characteristics

exemption for 5 GB

(SAS, SSD, SATA, SAS boosted, SSD boosted)

 
 

Elastic Volume Storage (EVS) / Volume Backup Storage (VBS) / Scalable File Service (SFS)

Elastic Volume Storage (EVS) can be ordered in five classes. Prices also vary according to access speed. Monthly costs are determined on the one hand by the allocated storage volumes in GB, and on the other by the duration of their use. That means if the storage is only provided for half a month, then only half of the costs are incurred. Elastic Volume Storage is also considered deployed even if the associated instance is stopped, as long as the storage has not been deleted. The EVS pricing model is also applied to Scalable File Service and Cloud Server Backup Service.

Only the ordered/allocated storage volumes are relevant when calculating the EVS, not the specific data volumes. There is a difference using VBS or SFS: In these cases, only the actual stored data is billed.

The amount of storage used (OBS) or allocated (EVS) is multiplied by the number of usage hours and divided by the total number of hours for the month. This results in the average storage used in a month. The average storage allocated per month is multiplied by the base price per GB. This results in a linear increase in costs as the volume of allocated storage increases.

Icon: pricing model storage
 

Example: EVS

 

Storage Disaster Recovery Service (SDRS)

The Storage Disaster Recovery Service (SDRS) is billed in the same way as the EVS. The service features the mirroring of hard disks across two availability zones (AZ). An additional hard disk for data replication in the target AZ is deployed. The additional and the original EVS are billed, as well as a service fee. The fee depends on size of the disks and whether the disks are shared or not. Usually, creating the necessary ECS copy in the second data center does not result in any further computing costs. The ECS only becomes active in the event of a disaster recovery and then generates the regular ECS costs.

Example: SDRS

 

Object Storage (OBS)

Object storage is billed differently from block storage: only the storage actually used (i.e., the actual data volume) is billed. However, additional costs are incurred for requests to access the object storage. For every 1,000 requests, 0.7 cents are billed for standard object storage. The data volume is billed on a staggered price scale – at the higher scales, the price for storage falls. The lowest scale ranges from 0 - 5 GB, of which the use is free of charge. The scales then go up with limits of 1 TB, 50 TB, 500 TB, 1 PB, 5 PB, 10 PB. The average data volume stored in a month fills the scales from the bottom up, with the amounts charged at the prices for the corresponding scales (€/GB). The total price for object storage is calculated as the sum of the costs for each individual scale used. For outbound traffic, costs are generally incurred for network services. However, 1 GB of outbound transfer per month is free of charge.

Icon: pricing model Object Storage
 

OBS Example

 

Cold Object Storage

Cold object storage is billed in the same way as for standard object storage. Cold object storage uses a low-cost, “slow” storage medium and stores data in compressed form. It is suitable for data that is to be called up and recovered on rare occasions only. The data storage is very cost-effective, but recovery results in additional costs. Recovery takes place on standard object storage as a cache. This is not included in the free contingent and is added to the monthly bill. The recovery process also incurs costs depending on the speed. Data can be called up at three speeds: bulk, standard, and expedited. The bulk request is the slowest but also the most cost-effective, while expedited recovery is the most expensive option. Expedited restoration is prioritized/preferred over other restorations. Since the object storage is designed for the long-term storage of data, there is a minimum storage period of 90 days. If this period is not achieved due to the early deletion of data, the difference to the minimum storage period is calculated and billed according to the rate of the first scale.

 

Warm Object Storage

Warm object storage behaves similarly to standard object storage in terms of data transfer and requests, but has more favorable storage costs and slightly higher costs for requests. Similar to standard object storage, data is not retrieved as quickly either. Therefore warm object storage is particularly suited to medium-term data storage with a  minimum storage period of 30 days. If this period is not achieved due to the early deletion of data, the difference to the minimum storage period is calculated and billed with according to the rate of the first scale.

Chart: Comparison of speed and price for standard, warm and cold object storage
Speed and Price Comparison Standard, Warm and Cold Object Storage
 
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