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  • NHLBI BioData Catalyst® (BDC) Documentation
  • Community
    • Who We Are
    • BDC Glossary
    • Citation and Acknowledgement
    • Strategic Planning
    • Request for Comments
      • NHLBI BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Security Statement
      • NHLBI DICOM Medical Image De-Identification Baseline Protocol
    • BDC Video Content Guidance
    • Contributing User Resources to BDC
  • Written Documentation
    • Getting Started
    • Data Access
      • Data Interoperability
      • Understanding Access
      • Submitting a dbGaP Data Access Request
      • Checking Access
    • Explore Available Data
      • Dug Semantic Search
        • Search and Results
      • PIC-SURE User Guide
        • Getting Started
          • Requirements and Login
          • Available Data and Managing Data Access
            • TOPMed and TOPMed related datasets
            • BioLINCC Datasets
            • CONNECTS Dataset
        • Data Organization in PIC-SURE
        • PIC-SURE Features and General Layout
        • PIC-SURE Open Access vs. PIC-SURE Authorized Access
          • PIC-SURE Open Access
          • PIC-SURE Authorized Access
        • Data Analysis Using the PIC-SURE API
        • Additional Resources
        • PIC-SURE API Documentation
        • Appendix 1: BioData Catalyst Identifiers - dbGaP, TOPMed, and PIC-SURE
        • Appendix 2: Table of Harmonized Variables
      • Discovering Data Using Gen3
        • Dictionary
        • Exploration
        • Query
        • Workspace
        • Profile
        • PFB Files
        • Current Projects
    • Analyze Data
      • Transferring Files Between Seven Bridges and Terra
      • Seven Bridges
        • Knowledge Center
        • Getting Started Guide
        • Comprehensive Analysis Tips
        • Troubleshooting Tasks
        • GWAS with GENESIS workflows
        • Annotation Explorer
      • Terra
        • Account Setup
          • Billing
          • Managing Costs
        • Workspace Setup
          • Data Storage & Management
          • Collaboration
          • Security
        • Bring Data into a Workspace
          • Bring in Data from Gen3
          • From Terra’s Data Library
          • Use Your Own Data with Terra
        • Run Analyses
          • Batch Processing with Workflows
          • Interactive Analysis
          • Genome-Wide Association Studies
        • Troubleshooting & Support
      • Dockstore
        • Launch workflows with BioData Catalyst
        • Discover our catalog
        • Intro to Docker, WDL, CWL
        • Dockstore Forum
        • Contribute to the community
    • Community Tools & Integration
      • Bring Your Own Tool(s)
        • BYOT Glossary
        • Working with Docker
        • Creating, testing & scaling WDL workflows
        • Creating, testing & scaling CWL workflows
        • Version Control, Publishing & Validation of Workflows
        • Advanced Topics
      • Import a Dockstore App With Seven Bridges
    • Writing BDC into a Grant Proposal
    • Incurring Cloud Costs
    • Release Notes
      • 2025-04-15 BDC Release Notes
      • 2025-01-15 NHLBI BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2024-10-21 NHLBI BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2024-07-02 NHLBI BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2024-04-01 NHLBI BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2024-01-08 NHLBI BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2023-10-04 NHLBI BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2023-07-11 NHLBI BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2023-04-04 BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2023-01-09 BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2022-10-03 BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2022-07-11 BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2022-04-04 BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2022-01-24 BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2021-10-04 BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2021-07-09 BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2021-04-02 BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2021-01-15 BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2020-10-23 BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2020-08-24 BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
      • 2020-04-02 BioData Catalyst Ecosystem Release Notes
    • Data Versioning Release Notes
    • NIH RECOVER Release Notes
  • Tutorials: Videos & Modules
    • Seven Bridges Tutorials
      • Genetic Association Testing using GENESIS Workflows
      • Estimating and Managing Your Cloud Costs
    • Terra Tutorials
      • Getting Started with Gen3 Data on Terra Tutorial
      • Genome Wide Association Study with 1000 Genomes Data Tutorial
      • Genome Wide Association Study with TOPMed Data Tutorial
      • TOPMed Aligner, or, How to Import Data From Gen3 into Terra and Run a Workflow on It
  • Data Management
    • Data Management Strategy
    • Instructions for Data Submission to BDC
      • De-identification Readme
      • Data Dictionary Requirement
    • dbGaP Study Configuration Process for Submission of Data to BDC
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  • Incurring Cloud Costs
  • Data Storage
  • Computing / Analysis
  • Egress Charges (Data Transfer)
  • Platform Support
  • Estimating your cloud costs

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  1. Written Documentation

Incurring Cloud Costs

Various costs associated with cloud computing

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Last updated 10 months ago

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Incurring Cloud Costs

Platforms within BDC use a combination of Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) for storing and analyzing data in the ecosystem. Researchers on BioData Catalyst begin to incur fees when they use the ecosystem in one of the following ways:

  1. Data Storage: When a researcher uploads their own data or stores derived results on a cloud environment, they will begin to incur data storage costs on the platform their instance is located on.

  2. Computing / Analysis: When a researcher runs a task in a platform they will incur charges based on their usage.

  3. Egress charges: When a researcher transfers data out of cloud storage.

  4. Platform Support: When projects require a significant amount of support researchers may need to purchase time from ecosystem platforms, though standard support is provided free of charge.

For more information on each of these categories, see below. You may also use the following links to view platform-specific guidance for or .

Data Storage

In general, storage charges are billed on all files in a workspace that belong to that project. This includes all files a researcher uploads to BioData Catalyst and any results files generated by their workflows and analysis. This does NOT include controlled dataset files hosted by BioData Catalyst.

Storage costs vary based on the amount of data a researcher stores, what type of disk or service they use for storing the data, and the services they select (AWS or GCP). For the most up-to-date information on storage rates, see these articles on storage and Storage.

Computing / Analysis

Compute costs vary and depend on a range of factors including:

  • The platform and cloud infrastructure provider where an analysis is performed

  • Workspace & cloud instance settings

  • Length of time to workflow completion

Egress Charges (Data Transfer)

By default any data uploaded or generated in a workspace is stored on a single cloud provider instance. If a researcher opts to move these files, they will be charged Egress fees, otherwise known as Data Transfer fees. These fees will occur if they:

  • Transfer files to another cloud provider, OR

  • Download files to a local machine

Fees for data egress vary based on service providers and what actions a researcher takes.

Platform Support

Estimating your cloud costs

Each NHLBI BioData Catalyst platform offers tools and tutorials to help you estimate your cloud costs. For information on these tools and how to run them, please see the below articles.

BioData Catalyst provides general support for researchers on all ecosystem platforms free of charge. If a researcher anticipates needing a large amount of support for specialized activities, such as organizing a large training workshop, they can reach out to the BioData Catalyst Coordinating Center () and/or the platform liaisons to discuss these needs as they develop their proposal.

For more help on estimating your anticipated cloud costs, please contact the .

BioData Catalyst Powered by Terra
BioData Catalyst Powered by Seven Bridges
Amazon S3
Google Cloud
bdc3@renci.org
BioData Catalyst Powered by Terra cost estimators
BioData Catalyst Powered by Seven Bridges cost estimation tutorial
NHLBI BioData Catalyst help desk