Note: As of 1st June 2022, automatic overage billing has been suspended for monthly overage quantities. We're making changes to Infrascale Dashboard UI to explicitly show the overage quantity to remove any guesswork. Once that is done, we'll resume automatic overage billing and will communicate prior to turning it on.
As a data protection company, Infrascale operates under the principle that offsite data replication shall never cease because of an arbitrary limit (i.e., a purchased amount of cloud storage). Therefore, when your storage needs grow with IBDR (Infrascale Backup & Disaster Recovery), 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 storage overage calculated?
- How are storage overage fees billed?
- When will I be billed for storage overage fees?
- How will I be notified of storage overage?
- Where can I view the storage usage for a CFA (Cloud Failover Appliance)?
- What steps can I take to reduce the storage usage?
How is storage overage calculated?
Storage overage is calculated as “used on disk” (the actual space consumed after compression and deduplication of backed-up data minus free blocks inside the DR storage file, reclaimable for the next backup job) minus “purchased” cloud storage.
Additionally, depending on your agreement with Infrascale, the meaning of "purchased" cloud storage differs. If your contract was signed after March 2nd, 2021, then please review the “IBDR (Infrascale Backup and Recovery)” bullet point below. If your contract was signed between April 1st, 2019, and March 2nd, 2021, please review the "IDR: Fair Use Policy" bullet point below.
- IBDR (Infrascale Backup and Disaster Recovery)
With IBDR, a specific amount (e.g., 2 TBs) of cloud storage is purchased and appears as an explicit line item (i.e., IBDR Cloud Storage: 1TB 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 cloud storage, simply multiply the protected quantity of TB by three (3). For example, if you purchased 2 TBs of protected space, your “purchased” cloud storage allocation, for the sake of overage, is calculated to 6 TBs (2 terabytes times 3 equals 6).
For more information regarding contracted protected space and the Fair Use Policy, please review the Backup & Disaster Recovery terms and definitions webpage.
Note: If your agreement with Infrascale is dated prior to April 1, 2019, and you don’t 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 current overage policy, which is more favorable to you. The current overage policy is described in questions one through five of the OVERAGE BILLING POLICY FAQ page.
How are storage overage fees billed?
Infrascale cloud storage 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 TBs) increments, and adds the applicable overage fees to a future invoice.
When will I be billed for storage overage fees?
You will be billed for storage overage fees on your next monthly invoice or, if your billing period is not monthly, a separate invoice in the calendar month following a storage overage will be issued.
How will I be notified of storage overage?
When an overage occurs, an email is sent. However, based on storage consumption, if we anticipate overages are likely to occur, a “First of Month” notice of overage email is sent.
Additionally, three additional 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 see the storage usage for a CFA (Cloud Failover Appliance)?
To view the storage usage, perform the following:
- Log in to the Infrascale Dashboard
- Mouse over the "Disaster Recovery" option in the gray menu bar
- Click the "Site Summary" option from the dropdown menu
- Review the "Cloud Storage" column for the appliance in question
- Mouse over the value in the field to view extra details
What steps can I take to reduce storage usage?
There are a few ways to manage one's storage consumption:
- Manually delete orphaned backup jobs via the "Manage Cloud" option for the CFA (Cloud Failover Appliance)
- Reduce the frequency of 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
After reading this article, you should have a firm understanding of overage billing. For additional information, please review the following:
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