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Changes to Cloud Billing for FY2023

 

In FY2021 and FY2022 the Division of Technology Services (DTS) charged a public cloud rate of cost + 25%. The additional 25% was for support and other charges related to administering the cloud. Starting in FY2023, DTS will be billing customers of public cloud at actual cost (which includes the shared portion of vendor support costs). This will simplify billing for agencies and clarify costs for public cloud. Agencies will see this change on the August 2022 bill. 

 

  • Q – What is a Public Cloud?
    • A – Public Cloud is on-demand computing services and infrastructure that are managed by a third-party provider and shared with multiple organizations using the public Internet. 
  • Q – Which Public Cloud providers does the State of Utah use?
    • A – In use today are:
      • Amazon Web Services (AWS)
      • Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
      • Microsoft Azure 
  • Q – How does an agency pay for services with Public Cloud? 
    • A – At the end of each monthly billing cycle, DTS receives a bill from the Public Cloud vendor. This bill is paid directly by DTS back to the vendor. Simultaneously, a billing feeder file is generated from CloudHealth (our billing product) to divide out all costs to the appropriate billing units. This feeder file then generates a monthly bill that the agencies receive. This bill is paid by the agency directly to DTS to recover the above costs. 
  • Q – What are Public Cloud costs?
    • A – Costs to agency customers are:
      • Direct costs for services from Public Cloud vendors, via the bill from DTS as described above
      • A monthly charge of 1.65% of total spend in cloud by Elcid for the use of CloudHealth and its services (Billing, Cost Optimization and Reporting)
      • Public Cloud vendor support charges. These are charges billed to DTS for Enterprise Support in AWS, Premier Support in GCP, and a future Azure support tier. Each ELCID will be billed based on the percentage of consumption. 

 

Support 

Cost formula – All agencies combined spend

AWS Enterprise Support

.

 

10% of monthly AWS usage for the first $0–$150K

7% of monthly AWS usage from $150K–$500K

5% of monthly AWS usage from $500K–$1M

3% of monthly AWS usage over $1M

GCP Premier Support

$12.5K/month + 4% of monthly charges. 

Azure support (coming soon)

TBD

 

  • Q – What does the $1 charge on tiered rates pay for? 
    • A – Cloud tools and resources
      • eg, AWS Shield Advanced, Terraform Cloud, Shared infrastructure
  • Q – When do these charges take effect?
    • A – You will see these charges starting on DTS August Bill run on Sept 6th 
      • This will be for charges from July 2022  
  • Q – How will these charges appear on my bill from DTS?
    • A – Cloud Health will show on the bill as 6516:Cloud Hosting and Storage Services. Drill down on to the detail level and it will show “Other”.  Then the Service Description will show “Cloud Health Charges”. 
    • Public Cloud will show on the bill as 6516:Cloud Hosting and Storage Services. Drill down on to the detail level and it will show “Other”. Then the Service Description will show “AWS Support Charges”, “GCP Support Charges, or “Azure Support Charges”. 

If you have any questions, please contact your IT Director or DTS Billing at dtsbilling@utah.gov.