Huge discrepancy between estimated storage cost and workspace spending report
Hi there,
I'm not sure if this is strictly an issue with Terra and not Google, but this past month we've noticed that one workspace with a storage cost estimate of ~$162 per month has cost us $1500 (if I'm interpreting the top 10 spending workspaces correctly as the actual amount that was paid).
I've included screenshots of the workspace with the storage cost estimate and the workspace on the top 10 with the other workspaces on the list cut out. The workspace has clinical data in it so I'd like to avoid sharing it unless absolutely necessary. The workspace is pretty old so we may just be able to delete it and not have to worry about the cost anymore, but I'd really like to know if you have any idea what might be going on here to avoid surprises like this in the future.
Best,
-Micah
Comments
5 comments
Hi Micah,
Thanks for writing in! We'll try to help with this as best we can. My first questions for now are, what is the date range dropdown box set to for the Spend Report on Terra? Also, have their been any major changes to the amount of data hosted in this workspace in the last 90 days?
Once we have the answers to those questions we'll take a closer look. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
Josh
Hi Josh,
That view is 30 days, but I've included the 90-day view here. It looks like this uptick in price is specifically in the last 30 days. There haven't been any methods run in this workspace for at least 4 years, although it may have been mopped within the last month, since I made some edits to a mopping script that we run and re-ran it on old workspaces, but this wouldn't ever add data.
Thanks,
-Micah
Hi Micah,
Thanks for the reply! That information will help us in our investigation. I have one more follow up question: does the spend report from within GCP itself show the same amount of usage for this workspace as the spend report in Terra?
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
Josh
Hi Josh,
Sorry for the delay. I don't have access to billing directly here, so I had to figure out who on the team had access to check. This does seem to be the real amount billed by Google.
I got screenshots of the amount that was billed through Google in May, June, and July to date. It seems like the surge in price was solely in June despite no workflows being run in the workspace and no indication that any data was added to it. The price in May was equal to the estimated monthly storage cost of $167 and July to date is slightly higher than the estimate at about $300, but not as high as June.
May Cost:
June Cost:
July Cost:
Hi Micah,
Thanks for the reply! It looks like Terra is displaying the information that it's getting from GCP correctly. Do you know if any of the users who have access to this workspace downloaded the data from it or ran workflows in other workspaces against this data? If there were data downloads outside of the bucket's region then there would be an egress cost for that download. This might explain the cost fluctuations that you're seeing.
My suggestion would be to break down the billing report in GCP to see what you're being charged for each SKU/service over this time frame. You can find out more about how to do this from this doc: https://support.terra.bio/hc/en-us/articles/4405325218075-Terra-expenses-and-breaking-down-a-Google-bill
Please take a look at that document and let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
Josh
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