Google Cloud Platform

lyndsey.d.ferguson

I have set up Google Cloud as per the instructions for the class. Do I need to shutdown my instances every day in order to not exceed the costs and re-install everything the next day?

This is the second day, so I don't know the trends yet. It does take time to set up each node so I don't want to run out of the credit. I can spend maybe 45 minutes per day on average working on the exercises in this class.

lyndsey.d.ferguson

It could be that I am misunderstanding how this works (🤞) and that free means free for the entire Trial period and the costs that I see are projected costs. Can someone confirm that hunch, or disabuse me of that notion?

chrispokorni

Hi @lyndsey.d.ferguson

If you are concerned about accrued costs for resources used on GCP, it is always a good idea to shutdown your instances at the end of the day and start them up the next time you are ready to practice. It is the same as shutting down your workstation at the end of the day. The next day you boot it up, everything is still there.

If you were to reset your instances, then you would lose some data, while deleting the instances would remove them together with all your work.

For an explanation of the free tier and the $300 credit you receive for the first year, you can always check the GCP documentation:
https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/gcp-free-tier?hl=vi

In order to see whether you incur any charges against your initial credit, you can explore the Billing menu of your GCP console.

Regards,
-Chris

lyndsey.d.ferguson

As I'm following the instructions provided for the class, I have an Instance Group and 2 instances. The "Stop" button is disabled for the instances. It suggested removing them from the Instance Group, which I've done, and now have been able to stop the instances. Hopefully there is no reason to keep them in that Instance Group.

alexmahr

So I remain confused having signed up for the now reduced to 90days-only (instead of 1 year) free tier of GCP I can see that one receives 300USD (fake money present to cover costs in the 90 days).

what remains unclear and could help is

1. do the VPC networks costs ? (how is the costs related measured per bandwidth used or per time it was setup ?)
2. do the Compute resources / VM Instances costs (per compute CPU run time or also in shut down mode - as the storage itself costs)

with 1. and 2 of course some over-the-thumb numebrs would help

chrispokorni

Hi @alexmahr,

It is not easy to quantify the costs of some GCP services, such as VPCs.

EDIT: But not a lot of traffic is generated by the lab exercises either, so from all GCP services costs I'd expect VPC and traffic costs to add up to a very small amount.

When provisioning a VM however, you can see an estimate of per month costs at the current configuration level (CPU, mem, disk, ...) which assumes the VM running non-stop for an entire month. What I have been doing to save on costs is to stop my VMs when no longer needed and start them when I wanted to resume my work. Suspending a VM reduces costs by some degree, while deleting and re-building does not preserve your work between sessions.

Regards,
-Chris