Billable items

This topic describes the resource metering method, billable items, and billing formulas of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink. This topic also describes the costs of other cloud services that are required to activate and use Realtime Compute for Apache Flink.

Metering method

The billing unit of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink workspaces is compute unit (CU), which is a unit of measurement for computing resources. One CU is equal to 1 CPU core, 4 GiB of memory, and 20 GB of local storage. The local storage stores information such as logs and checkpoints. The number of CUs consumed reflects the resources used by Realtime Compute for Apache Flink. The number of CUs consumed by a Realtime Compute for Apache Flink deployment varies based on the queries per second (QPS) of input data streams, computing complexity, and input data distribution of the deployment. You can estimate the number of CUs that you need to purchase based on your business scale and the computing capability of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink. The following table describes the processing capability of CUs in Realtime Compute for Apache Flink.

Use case

Processing capability

Simple streaming stress testing

The operations include filtering and cleansing.

Each CU can process 40,000 to 55,000 data records per second.

Complex streaming stress testing

The operations include aggregation and complex user-defined function (UDF) calculation.

Each CU can process 5,000 to 10,000 data records per second.

Note

The preceding estimate applies only to the internal processing capability of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink. The external data read and write capabilities are not included. The external data read and write efficiency may affect the computing capability estimate of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink.
- If you want to use Realtime Compute for Apache Flink to read data from Simple Log Service but the query quota of Simple Log Service is limited, the overall computing capability of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink is subject to the capability allowed by Simple Log Service.
- If the number of connections or transactions per second (TPS) is limited for the ApsaraDB RDS database that Realtime Compute for Apache Flink references, the throughput of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink is limited by the throttling of the ApsaraDB RDS database.
Window functions are complex operations and consume more CUs than simple operations. If your applications require the use of window functions, we recommend that you purchase at least four CUs.

The following table describes the billable items of a Realtime Compute for Apache Flink workspace.

Billable item	Description
Management resources	When you create a workspace, the system provides a development console for the workspace. The development console and its components consume about 2 CUs for management.
Computing resources	Computing resources are the resources that are consumed when you perform computing tasks, and are metered in CUs. You are charged for these CUs on the subscription or pay-as-you-go billing method.

The following table describes how the fees for each billing method are calculated for individual workspaces.

Billing method	Billing formula
Subscription	Intel X86 architecture: Workspace fee = Fee for management resources of the workspace + Sum of fees for computing resources of all namespaces in the workspace Fee for management resources of a workspace = Number of CUs consumed for management × Unit price of management resources of the Intel X86 architecture × Subscription period Fee for computing resources of a namespace = Number of CUs consumed for computing × Unit price of computing resources of the Intel X86 architecture in a single zone or across zones × Subscription period YiTian ARM architecture: Workspace fee = Fee for management resources of the workspace + Sum of fees for computing resources of all namespaces in the workspace Fee for management resources of a workspace = Number of CUs consumed for management × Unit price of management resources of the YiTian ARM architecture × Subscription period Fee for computing resources of a namespace = Number of CUs consumed for computing × Unit price of computing resources of the YiTian ARM architecture × Subscription period
Pay-as-you-go	Workspace fee = Sum of computing resource usage per minute in an hour/60 × Hourly price + Management resource usage in an hour/60 × Number of CUs consumed for management × Hourly price

Note

The number of CUs consumed for management is fixed to 2.
For more information about the unit prices of management resources and computing resources, see Subscription.
The pay-as-you-go billing method supports only the Intel X86 architecture. A pay-as-you-go workspace is billed by minute. The billing cycle is 1 hour.
The fees that are calculated based on the preceding formulas are the fees of one Realtime Compute for Apache Flink workspace. You can purchase multiple workspaces for an Alibaba Cloud account. When you settle bills for an account, you must pay fees based on the total fees of multiple workspaces.

Billing rules for supporting services

The fees that are required in the activation process of a Realtime Compute for Apache Flink workspace include only service fees for Realtime Compute for Apache Flink. When you activate and use Realtime Compute for Apache Flink, you may also be charged for other cloud services. The following table describes these services.

Alibaba Cloud service	Billing rule
VPC	When you purchase a Realtime Compute for Apache Flink workspace, you must select a virtual private cloud (VPC) in the region in which the workspace resides. For more information, see Billing.
OSS	Object Storage Service (OSS) is used to store information about Realtime Compute for Apache Flink deployments, such as checkpoints, savepoints, logs, and JAR packages. For more information, see Billing overview.
ARMS	If you select Managed Service for Prometheus when you purchase a Realtime Compute for Apache Flink workspace, Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS) is automatically activated to provide the commercial edition of Managed Service for Prometheus, which is used for monitoring and alerting. Monitoring fee: For Realtime Compute for Apache Flink workspaces that are purchased after 10:00 on December 8, 2023, the new billing method of ARMS is used. For more information, see Billing. For Realtime Compute for Apache Flink workspaces that are purchased before 10:00 on December 8, 2023, the old billing method of ARMS is used. For more information, see Pay-as-you-go. In this case, you can change the billing method to the new billing method of ARMS. For more information about how to use the new billing method of ARMS, see Service notices of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink. Important The Managed Service for Prometheus instance is released when you release a Realtime Compute for Apache Flink workspace. If you do not want to use the Managed Service for Prometheus instance, you can log on to the ARMS console to release the instance at any time. For more information, see Discard or restore metrics. After the Managed Service for Prometheus instance is released, you can no longer troubleshoot issues based on the metrics collected by ARMS in the development console of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink or configure monitoring and alerting settings. ARMS collects the metrics of deployments in Realtime Compute for Apache Flink every 30 seconds. The metric collection frequency affects the monitoring accuracy and cost. A high collection frequency provides high monitoring accuracy at a higher cost.
CloudMonitor	If you select the free monitoring service when you purchase a Realtime Compute for Apache Flink workspace, CloudMonitor provides basic monitoring and alerting capabilities. For more information, see Free quotas. Note After a workspace is released, a namespace is deleted, or a Realtime Compute for Apache Flink deployment is deleted, the related metrics are also deleted. For more information about the differences in monitoring and alerting features for Realtime Compute for Apache Flink between CloudMonitor and ARMS, see Comparison between CloudMonitor and Managed Service for Prometheus of ARMS.

References

For more information about how to calculate the number of consumed CUs in a workspace, see How do I calculate the number of consumed CUs in a workspace?
For more information about the billing rules, unit prices in different regions, and billing discontinuation of the pay-as-you-go billing method, see Pay-as-you-go.
For more information about the billing rules, unit prices in different regions, and resource changes after expiration of the subscription billing method, see Subscription.
For more information about how to view the bills of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink, see View bills.