Billing FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

This page provides answers to frequently asked questions about billing on StreamNative Cloud. If you don't find the answer you're looking for, please contact our support team.

What is the difference between pre-replication and post-replication write throughput and how does it impact pricing?

Pre-replication write throughput refers to the amount of data written by clients before it is replicated across multiple bookies. Post-replication write throughput, on the other hand, is the total amount of data written after replication has occurred.

For example, if you write 1 GB of data with a replication factor of 3, the pre-replication write throughput is 1 GB, while the post-replication write throughput is 3 GB.

In terms of pricing, StreamNative Cloud bills based on the pre-replication write throughput. This means you are charged for the actual data you write, not for the additional copies created for replication purposes. This pricing model ensures that you don't incur extra costs for maintaining data redundancy and fault tolerance in your Pulsar cluster.

How often are billing metrics updated?

Billing metrics are typically updated hourly. However, there may be a slight delay in the reporting of usage data, so the most recent hour's data might not be immediately visible in your billing dashboard.

Are there any additional costs for using the StreamNative Cloud Console?

No, there are no additional costs for using the StreamNative Cloud Console. The console is provided as a free tool to manage and monitor your Pulsar clusters, instances, and other resources.

What happens if I exceed my free credits?

If you're approaching or have exceeded your free credit limit, StreamNative will notify you via email. In most cases, your services will continue to run, but you are required to add a payment method to ensure uninterrupted service. If you have questions about your free credits, please contact the StreamNative team at https://streamnative.io/contact.

What is dimensional consumption?

Dimensional consumption refers to the usage of resources across different dimensions in StreamNative Cloud, particularly for Serverless clusters. These dimensions include:

1. Ingress (Data In): The volume of data being written to your cluster, measured in bytes per second.
2. Egress (Data Out): The volume of data being read from your cluster, measured in bytes per second.
3. Data Entries: The number of entries (batches of messages) processed by the cluster per second, including both produce and consume operations.
4. Metadata Requests: The number of metadata operations performed on the cluster per second, such as creating or deleting topics, updating partitions, or retrieving cluster metadata.

For Serverless clusters, these dimensions are used to calculate your usage in terms of Elastic Throughput Units (ETUs). Your ETU consumption for a given hour is based on the highest usage across these dimensions, relative to the capacity provided by one ETU. This approach allows for flexible, scalable resource allocation and pricing, where you only pay for the capacity you actually use, up to your cluster's maximum capacity.

Understanding dimensional consumption is crucial for optimizing your usage and costs in StreamNative Cloud, especially for Serverless clusters.