Manage storage in your subscription
Each AoC subscription includes storage in IBM Cloud—this storage is built in to your AoC subscription. "Storage" is the volume of your data in your built-in IBM Cloud storage each month.
You can also add your own existing storage in any supported cloud provider to your Aspera on Cloud application; your subscription does not bill for storage in your own cloud provider since your pay your provider directly.
What counts as storage?
All data in your built-in IBM Cloud storage at the time of the monthly snapshot counts in your AoC storage metric.
Data in any other storage attached to your AoC organization in not counted in your AoC subscription, no matter whether that storage is on-premises, remote, or in the cloud, no matter which cloud provider. You pay those storage costs directly to the storage provider.
What causes storage overage charges?
Unlike egress and transfer volume, the AoC storage metric is not a cumulative measure of storage used over your term; rather, storage is calculated as a monthly snapshot.
For example, if, at the time of the monthly snapshot in May, data in your built-in storage exceeds your pre-paid storage volume, you are billed an overage charge for the excess storage that month. But if your built-in storage volume at the June monthly snapshot does not exceed your pre-paid volume, you do not receive a storage overage charge in June.
IBM Aspera does not limit the amount of data you can place in your built-in storage, even if you exceed your pre-paid amount.
Pay-as-You-Go Subscriptions
Pay-as-You-Go subscriptions do not have pre-paid storage. As a Pay/Go subscriber, you are billed for all storage in your built-in IBM Cloud storage at the time of the monthly snapshot.
Interpret the graph and table
Storage is not tracked or billed as cumulative volumes but rather as monthly usage values.
Graph
Consider a sample graph for storage.
The height of each monthly column shows the pre-paid storage maximum. In any given month, storage can be higher or lower than the previous month since storage is not calculated cumulatively over the term of your subscription. If you exceed your pre-paid maximum storage in a given month, IBM Aspera bills you for overage at pay-per-use rates. In the next month, your storage may again be below the pre-paid threshold and you won't receive a bill for overage.
Table
Below each graph is a tabular representation of the same data. Each month shows storage used. As long as the monthly total remains below your pre-paid max, you incur no pay-per-use fees. If a monthly total exceeds your pre-paid maximum for any given month, you are billed for pay-per use fees for that month.
The monthly in-plan allowance plus any monthly pay-per-use volume equals the total monthly storage volume.
