As a data protection company, Infrascale operates under the principle that offsite data replication shall never cease because of an arbitrary limit (that is, the purchased cloud storage). Therefore, when your storage needs grow with Infrascale Backup & Disaster Recovery (IBDR), Infrascale will automatically increase your cloud storage capacity. As a result, you may find yourself consuming more cloud storage than was originally purchased; hence where overage billing comes into play.
This article aims to answer the following questions:
- How is the cloud overage calculated?
- How are the cloud overage fees billed?
- When will I be billed for the cloud overage fees?
- How will I be notified of the cloud overage?
- Where can I view the cloud storage usage for an IBDR Appliance?
- What steps can I take to reduce cloud storage use?
How is the cloud overage calculated?
Cloud overage is calculated as “used on disk” (the actual space consumed after compression and deduplication of the backed-up data minus free blocks inside the DR storage file, reclaimable for the next backup job) minus the purchased cloud storage.
Additionally, depending on your agreement with Infrascale, the meaning of the purchased cloud storage differs. If your contract was signed after March 2, 2021, then please review IBDR Overage Billing Policy below. If your contract was signed between April 1, 2019, and March 2, 2021, please review the IDR Fair Use Policy below.
- IBDR (Infrascale Backup & Disaster Recovery): Overage Billing Policy
With IBDR, a specific amount (for example, 2 TB) of the cloud storage is purchased and appears as an explicit line item (that is, IBDR Cloud Storage: 1 TB Cloud Storage with a quantity multiplier) within your quote and on your invoice.
- IDR (Infrascale Disaster and Recovery): Fair Use Policy
With IDR, you purchased protected storage of DRaaS, in terabyte (TB) increments. This value is indicative of the storage you are protecting from your source servers. Your quote/invoice does not have a dedicated cloud storage line item. Instead, cloud storage is derived from the DRaaS/protected line item, as defined in the Fair Use Policy. To translate an IDR quote/invoice to the cloud storage, simply multiply the protected quantity of TB by three (3). For example, if you purchased 2 TB of the protected space, your purchased cloud storage allocation, for the sake of overage, is calculated to be 6 TB (2 TB times 3 equals 6).
Note: If your agreement with Infrascale is dated prior to April 1, 2019, and you do not have an Overage Billing & Fair Use Policy as an exhibit to your Customer Agreement:
Although you may be subject to automatic purchases or upgrades of storage quantities to eliminate your overage, Infrascale will apply the Overage Billing Policy, which is more favorable to you. It is also described in the Overage Billing Policy FAQ.
How are the cloud overage fees billed?
Infrascale cloud overage fees are billed monthly in arrears on a per-service basis. Therefore, on the last calendar day of each month, Infrascale evaluates your cloud storage consumption, calculates any overage, in half-terabyte (0.5 TB) increments, and adds the applicable overage fees to a future invoice.
When will I be billed for the cloud overage fees?
You will be billed for the cloud overage fees on your next monthly invoice or, if your billing period is not monthly, a separate invoice in the calendar month following the cloud overage will be issued.
How will I be notified of the cloud overage?
When an overage occurs, an email is sent. However, based on the storage consumption, if we anticipate overages are likely to occur, a “First of Month” notice of overage email is sent.
Additionally, three extra notices, every seven days (on the 7th, 14th, and 21st–final notice), will be sent after the first of the month notice.
Where can I view the cloud storage usage for an IBDR Appliance?
To view the cloud storage used for the IBDR Appliance:
- Sign in to your account in the Infrascale Dashboard.
- Go to Disaster Recovery › Site Summary.
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Review the Used Cloud Storage column for the IBDR Appliance in question.
Hover over the value in the cell to view the details.
What steps can I take to reduce cloud storage use?
There are a few ways to manage cloud storage consumption:
- Manually delete the orphaned backup jobs using the Manage Cloud option for the IBDR Appliance.
- Reduce the frequency of the scheduled backups.
- Set retention policies that limit the lifespan of storing backups in the cloud.
Note: After reducing storage, it may take up to 24 hours as deleted jobs and retention policies clear through the consumed storage.
Conclusion
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After reading this article, you should have a firm understanding of overage billing. For additional information, please view the following:
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