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Cloud Computing

Last Updated on by Gary Jung.

The IT Division encourages the use of cloud computing for science as an effective way to to meet specific research and computing needs. Many researchers have found that cloud computing works well for quickly bringing up computing infrastructure and that it scales well for bursty workloads such as data releases. Others have found that cloud tools for machine learning, search and workflow orchestration are very effective.

To facilitate cloud use at Berkeley Lab, Science IT has secured master payer contracts with. Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform. These master payer agreements provide LBNL scientists, staff, and other affiliated researchers with access to the full suite of AWS and GCP services without use of a purchase order or need to create a contract vehicle.  This is considered a self-service cloud offering, as you are expected to engage with the provider, and manage your own environment.

Some of the benefits of using cloud computing services through the Lab’s Master Payer agreement are:

  • LBNL and DOE have negotiated better pricing and discounts as compared to regular list pricing.
  • There are no fees or charges for having an account on either service
  • You only pay for the services and resources that are actually in use on either service
  • Cost savings and discounts are automatically applied as part of the program.
  • An 11% overhead fee is charged (procurement pass-through burden)
  • Charges are applied monthly via recharge using a standard Project ID (PID)
  • You have access to Account Management, Cloud Solution Architects, and Subject Matter experts through Science IT who can assist with how to use cloud services, optimize costs, and provide technical guidance on best practices, but do not provide an ongoing service model.
  • Science IT works with AWS and GCP provides various trainings throughout the year and also works to provide access to experts for consultations

Our Science IT consultants can help you get started and can help move your codes and workflows onto the cloud.   Interested users can email ScienceIT@lbl.gov for more information, and they can get you up and running on either service as soon as the same day (GCP) or a day or two (AWS).

Compare Options

Feature

AWS

GCP

Discounted Pricing
  • 8-12% overall discount across all on AWS services
  • Global Data Egress Waiver agreement is already in place for all users on the LBL master payer program.
  • Significant spending-based discounts for Cloud Storage and Cloud Engine, compared to list pricing in addition to any standard applicable sustained use discounts.
    • 19% off Compute VM Engine and attached storage services
    • 28% discount on Google Cloud Storage usage
  • Data egress fee waiver for all users on the LBL master payer program is already in place.
  • Direct agreement between DOE and Google covers all GCP usage for all DOE National Labs through 2025.

Billing
  • Both options feature centralized billing. LBL pays the bill at the end of the month, and then recharges customers via PID.

Budgets and Alerts
  • Both options feature per-account (AWS) or per-project (GCP) budgets and alerts for specific budget amounts or projected spending levels. It is strongly recommended that each research project set budget alerts to monitor cloud spending.

Single Sign-On (SSO) and Account Security
  • Currently no LBL Identity SSO available for AWS accounts
  • Separate MFA can be configured for accounts.
  • Uses existing LBL identity SSO and MFA

Additional Vendor Agreement Benefits
  • Security additions like Cloudwatch logs and basic GuardRails to help protect your environment.
  • Most existing services are FedRAMP Medium certified for main US east-west regions with no additional agreement needed.
  • AWS Reserved Instance options with additional discounting and flexible, sub-annual terms.
  • Access to solution architects — AWS staff who can assist with how to use AWS, and provide technical guidance on best practices.
  • Security practices independently verified and certified against global standards.
  • Most existing services are FedRAMP Medium certified for main US east-west regions with no additional agreement needed.
  • Committed Use Discount options provide additional cost discounts over On-Demand Usage pricing. Subscription Agreements can provide a consistent monthly bill to remove the worries about unexpectedly high spending.
  • Access to Google TPUs (10-30x faster than GPUs), and services like AutoML and Cloud ML Engine.

Learn More

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The Resources below is served as the HPC User Guide

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