Billing unit applications

Billing units (BUs) are used to distribute resources to users as well as measure and monitor service usage in specific CSC’s services.

The four different Billing unit types covering the diverse use cases of CSC’s services are:

• CPU BU (used in Puhti, Mahti and Roihu jobs without GPU)
• GPU BU (used in Puhti, Mahti and Roihu jobs with GPU)
• Storage BU (used in Puhti, Mahti and Roihu Lustre storage, Allas, Shared Fileservice and SD Connect)
• Cloud BU (used in cPouta, ePouta, Rahti, Pukki and SD Desktop)

Users using our services on a free-of-charge basis will not be charged for the used Billing units. Commercial users need to purchase services. If you are a commercial user, please consult CSC Service Desk for acquiring resources.

• Available Billing unit packages

Most of CSC’s services require a CSC project created in MyCSC Customer portal. Billing units are allocated to and tracked per project. The Billing unit usage can be reviewed in MyCSC. You can estimate the BU consumption of the services you plan on using with the billing unit calculator at the bottom of this page. Please note that different services consume Billing units at different rates. For more information, please see our user guide Docs CSC:

• How to create a CSC project
• Reviewing Billing unit usage
• Service-specific billing models

Users are advised to submit a resource application which covers maximum 1 year of resource usage at a time. Please note that in addition to the scientific evaluation, also amount of project’s remaining resources and previous resource usage affect the awarded resources. Also, in general new projects are granted with small resources to begin with and users are advised to apply for more resources after successfully demonstrating their resource usage. Please note that Resource Officers and Resource Allocation Board may reject applications that contain incorrect or incomplete information, or if there is a reason to suspect that the user violates CSC Terms of Use or the free-of-charge policy.

Billing unit application processing times

How to write a good billing unit application?

When applying for billing units in MyCSC, please consider the following regarding your project:

Project name	Give your project a name that clearly and concisely represents your work.  Note! When applying resources for an existing project, please update Project name if needed in your project’s information in MyCSC before applying for resources.
Project description	Provide a description that explains: – your project’s goals – why it is important – the methods you plan to use – project implementation timeline Note! When applying resources for an existing project, please update Project description if needed in the final view before submitting the resource application.
Field of science	Please add Primary and Secondary fields of science of your project.  Note! When applying resources for an existing project, please update fields of science if needed in the final view before submitting the resource application.
Processing of personal data	Please indicate whether you are going to process personal data in your project.
Funding decisions	Please add possible funding decisions to your project. These funding decision are taken into account in the application review. Note! If you are applying for resources for an existing project, please update the funding decisions to your project’s information in MyCSC before applying for resources.
Services	Please select the services you want to use in this project. It is possible to enable services later. These selections will enable the services in the project when the project is submitted. The selections will help you to define the appropriate resources for the project in the next step.
Resources	Choose the applied resource packages carefully. If your project has previous usage, please estimate your need based on the usage. Apply for resources needed for maximum of 1 year at a time! In case you are applying for more resources than you have used before, please justify the increase amount in ‘Short overview of results’ field in the application. If your project is new, please apply for an S package to begin with. After successfully demonstrating the usage you can apply for more. In general, new projects are only granted with small resources to begin with.
Publications	Please add max. 10 recent publications that are based on used CSC resources and where CSC has been acknowledged. If your project is new and/or you don’t have publications that are based on the used CSC resources, you can add other publications relevant to your project. If there are no publications, please add a dummy and explain in the ‘Short overview of results’ field in the application.
Keywords	Please add max. 10 keywords that describe your work.
Short overview of results	Please describe what results have you achieved since last application? How the CSC project implementation has proceeded?  If you are applying resources for a new project which does not have previous applications, please state this here. Please estimate how are you going to use the resources per quarter during the next 12 months from now. In case you are applying for more resources than you have used before, please justify here the increase amount. If there are no publications, please add a dummy in the ‘Publications’ section and explain your situation here.
Program codes, methods and research objectives	When applying for CPU, GPU and/or Cloud billing units, please describe: – Which software are you planning to use? – Have you run the software on our systems or some other systems before? – What kind of computing do you plan to do? E.g. simulations, jobs, analyses, services? – How have you confirmed the efficiency of the computing? E.g. simulation benchmark, scaling tests, alternative approach? – What results will you produce with these applied resources? When applying for Storage billing units, please describe: – What data are you storing? – Which storage system do you plan to use and how? – Who is responsible for managing the data? – Who owns the data? – If available, provide a data management plan URL – If your approach generates a lot of data and/or files, how do you optimized managing data/files and regular cleansing cycles? – How will you manage your data after active data processing or computing phase? – Will you share your data from the system? With whom do you intend to share the data? – What is your exit strategy from CSC environment when your CSC project ends?

Billing unit calculator

Use the calculator below to estimate the amount of billing units the services you plan on using will consume.