After you create an Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch or Logstash cluster that uses the subscription billing method, you can switch the billing method to pay-as-you-go to recover some of the subscription costs and use the Elasticsearch or Logstash cluster in a more flexible manner. After the billing method of the cluster is switched to pay-as-you-go, make sure that your account has sufficient balance. If your account does not have sufficient balance, payments may become overdue, which affects your services.
Prerequisites
The Elasticsearch or Logstash cluster whose billing method you want to switch meets the following requirements:
- The cluster belongs to your Alibaba Cloud account.
- The cluster does not have an unpaid order for billing method switching.
If the cluster has such an unpaid order, you must cancel the unpaid order and place another order to switch the billing method.
- The cluster is in a normal state.
- The cluster does not contain data nodes with one or two vCPUs and 2 GiB of memory. Important Data nodes with one or two vCPUs and 2 GiB of memory may affect the performance stability of clusters. Therefore, Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch no longer provides data nodes with these specifications since May 2021. Existing data nodes with these specifications can still be used. If your cluster contains data nodes with these specifications, we recommend that you upgrade the data nodes at the earliest opportunity. For more information, see Upgrade the configuration of a cluster.
- The version of the Elasticsearch cluster is not V7.4. Important After May 2021, V7.4 is no longer provided. Existing V7.4 clusters are not affected. We recommend that you purchase V7.10 clusters.
Limits
You cannot switch the billing methods of clusters on Alibaba Gov Cloud and Alibaba Finance Cloud from subscription to pay-as-you-go.
Precautions
Before you switch the billing method of a cluster from subscription to pay-as-you-go, take note of the following points:
After you switch the billing method to pay-as-you-go, the system does not release the cluster. Make sure that your account has sufficient balance. If your account does not have sufficient balance, the cluster may be suspended due to overdue payments. If you no longer want to use the cluster, back up the data stored in the cluster and release the cluster in the console.
After you switch the billing method to pay-as-you-go, you receive a refund. The refund amount is 85% of the fee of the remaining subscription. The other 15% of the fee is deducted as a service fee.
NoteFee of remaining subscription = Fee actually paid - Fee for consumed resources
After you switch the billing method to pay-as-you-go, the system refunds the remaining amount of the subscription and stored-value cards to the original payment account. The amount of coupons and vouchers cannot be refunded.
If the cluster has pending renewal or upgrade orders, a full refund is returned to the original payment account.
Renewals provided by Alibaba Cloud due to Internet Content Provider (ICP) filings, errors, or server room migration cannot be refunded.
Switch the billing method of an Elasticsearch cluster from subscription to pay-as-you-go
- Log on to the Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch console.
- In the left-side navigation pane, click Elasticsearch Clusters.
In the top navigation bar, select the resource group to which the cluster whose billing method you want to switch belongs and the region where the cluster resides. In the left-side navigation pane, click Elasticsearch Clusters again.
On the page that appears, find the cluster and choose in the Actions column.
On the Switch to Pay-As-You-Go page, view the instructions and billing information. Read and accept the terms of service and click Buy Now.
After you pay for the order, the billing method of the cluster is switched from subscription to pay-as-you-go.
Switch the billing method of a Logstash cluster from subscription to pay-as-you-go
- Log on to the Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch console.
- In the top navigation bar, select the region where the desired cluster resides.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Logstash Clusters.
On the page that appears, find the cluster and choose in the Actions column.
On the Switch to Pay-As-You-Go page, view the instructions and billing information. Read and accept the terms of service and click Buy Now.
After you pay for the order, the billing method of the cluster is switched from subscription to pay-as-you-go.