AWS 在同一區不同 AZ 頻寬費用的特別地方

剛好在處理 AWS 同一個 region 下不同 AZ 之間的傳輸費用,跟帳單互相比對,查了以後才發現跟想像中不一樣,這邊以 EC2 為例子,可以參考「Amazon EC2 On-Demand Pricing」這頁裡面的說明。

從 Internet 端進 AWS 的流量是不計費的:

Data Transfer IN To Amazon EC2 From Internet
All data transfer in $0.00 per GB

但從 AZ 進到另外一個 AZ 時,in 與 out 都要收費:

Data transferred "in" to and "out" from Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, Amazon Redshift, Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX), and Amazon ElastiCache instances, Elastic Network Interfaces or VPC Peering connections across Availability Zones in the same AWS Region is charged at $0.01/GB in each direction.

所以直接用 US$0.01/GB 的計算是不夠的,得用 US$0.02/GB 來計算。

同樣的,如果是 Public IP 與 Elastic IP 也都是雙向收費,跨 VPC 也是雙向收費,所以都要用 US$0.02/GB 來算:

IPv4: Data transferred “in” to and “out” from public or Elastic IPv4 address is charged at $0.01/GB in each direction.
IPv6: Data transferred “in” to and “out” from an IPv6 address in a different VPC is charged at $0.01/GB in each direction.

AWS 流量相關的 Free Tier 增加不少...

Jeff Barr 出來公告增加 AWS 流量相關的 free tier:「AWS Free Tier Data Transfer Expansion – 100 GB From Regions and 1 TB From Amazon CloudFront Per Month」。

一般性的 data transfer 從 1GB/month/region 變成 100GB/mo,現在是 21 regions 所以不會有反例,另外大多數的人或是團隊也就固定用一兩個 region,這個 free tier 大概可以省個 $10 到 $20 左右?

Data Transfer from AWS Regions to the Internet is now free for up to 100 GB of data per month (up from 1 GB per region). This includes Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Elastic Load Balancing, and so forth. The expansion does not apply to the AWS GovCloud or AWS China Regions.

另外是 CloudFront 的部份,本來只有前 12 個月有 free tier,現在是開放到所有帳號都有,另外從 50GB/month 升到 1TB/month,這個部份的 free tier 就不少了,大概是 $100 到 $200?

Data Transfer from Amazon CloudFront is now free for up to 1 TB of data per month (up from 50 GB), and is no longer limited to the first 12 months after signup. We are also raising the number of free HTTP and HTTPS requests from 2,000,000 to 10,000,000, and removing the 12 month limit on the 2,000,000 free CloudFront Function invocations per month. The expansion does not apply to data transfer from CloudFront PoPs in China.

今年十二月才生效,要注意一下不要現在就用爽爽:

This change is effective December 1, 2021 and takes effect with no effort on your part.

這樣好像可以考慮把 blog 與 wiki 都放上去玩玩看,目前這兩個服務都是用 Cloudflare 的 free tier,HiNet 用戶基本上都是連去 Cloudflare 的美西 PoP,偶而離峰時間會用亞洲的點,但都不會是台灣的 PoP...

不過記得之前 WordPress + CloudFront 有些狀況,再研究看看要怎麼弄好了...

Cloudflare 推出 Cloudflare R2 Storage,相容於 S3 API,但沒有傳輸費用

Cloudflare 宣佈了 Cloudflare R2 Storage,相容於 S3 API,但是沒有傳輸費用:「Announcing Cloudflare R2 Storage: Rapid and Reliable Object Storage, minus the egress fees」,Hacker News 上的「Cloudflare R2 storage: Rapid and reliable object storage, minus the egress fees (cloudflare.com)」可以看一下討論,裡面有負責 R2 的 PM (帳號是 greg-m) 回答一些東西。

R2 的第一個特點就是剛剛提到的傳輸費用:一般的雲端都是傳進去不用錢,但傳出來會很貴,而 R2 其中一個主打的點就是傳出來不用錢:

R2 builds on Cloudflare’s commitment to the Bandwidth Alliance, providing zero-cost egress for stored objects — no matter your request rate. Egress bandwidth is often the largest charge for developers utilizing object storage and is also the hardest charge to predict. Eliminating it is a huge win for open-access to data stored in the cloud.

另外 storage cost 也算低,S3 目前的費用是 US$0.023/GB/month (拿 us-east-1 相比),而 R2 目前的定價是 US$0.015/GB/month:

That doesn’t mean we are shifting bandwidth costs elsewhere. Cloudflare R2 will be priced at $0.015 per GB of data stored per month — significantly cheaper than major incumbent providers.

在 durability 的部份,與 S3 都是一年 11 個 9:

The core of what makes Object Storage great is reliability — we designed R2 for data durability and resilience at its core. R2 will provide 99.999999999% (eleven 9’s) of annual durability, which describes the likelihood of data loss.

目前還沒有公開,算是先對市場放話:

R2 is currently under development — you can sign up here to join the waitlist for access.

有幾個點還蠻有趣的,第一個是 Cloudflare 自己在推的 Bandwidth Alliance 裡有不少 VPS 跟 Cloudflare 之間的流量是不計頻寬費用的,所以等於是 VPS 到 R2 不計費,而 R2 到 VPS 也不計費,但要注意 VPS 自己也都有在推 object storage。

像是 Vultr 的 US$5 方案包括了 250GB 的空間與 1TB 的頻寬,扣掉頻寬的部份 (可以透過 Cloudflare 處理),相當於是 US$0.02/GB。

Linode 也類似,US$5 的方案包括了 250GB 的空間與 500GB 的頻寬,算出來也是 US$0.02/GB。

Backblaze 也有類似的產品 B2,US$0.005/GB/month 的儲存費用以及 $0.01/GB 的傳輸費用,但頻寬的部份也可以透過 Cloudflare 處理。

這個產品出來以後可以再看看如何,但看起來是蠻有趣的。對目前的雲端商應該還好 (因為資料進 R2 還是有費用),但對這些 VPS 來說應該是有蠻大的衝擊...

Docker Desktop 要開始對商用收費了,以及 Open Source 版本的設法

Hacker News Daily 上看到的,Docker Desktop 修改了他的授權條件,對於商用版本要開始收費了:「Docker Desktop no longer free for large companies: New 'Business' subscription is here」,養套殺的過程...

目前看到的條件是 250 人以下的公司,而且年營業額在 10m 美金以下的情況免費,另外個人、教育以及非商業的 open source 專案保持免費:

It remains free for small businesses (fewer than 250 employees AND less than $10 million in annual revenue), personal use, education, and non-commercial open source projects.

如果不符合的話,第一種方法是花錢繼續用 Docker Desktop,看起來最少要買 Pro 等級的方案,費用是每個人 USD$60/year 或是 USD$7/month。

第二種方法是只安裝 command line 的部份,這個部份可以透過 MacPorts 或是 Homebrew 的方式安裝。

我自己是用 MacPorts 的方法裝,雖然有點麻煩,但因為是一次性的設定,應該還算堪用。

首先是去 VirtualBox 官網上面安裝軟體 (我是連「Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack」都裝了),然後就可以用 MacPorts 裝三包:

sudo port install docker docker-compose docker-machine

接著可以建立要跑 Linux 的虛擬機,docker engine 會跑在裡面:

docker-machine create --driver virtualbox default

然後把虛擬機跑起來:

docker-machine start

可以設定讓虛擬機在整台機器重開機時自動把虛擬機跑起來,但這部份就自己在網路上找文章設定了,因為我用不到... (記憶體不夠,而且平常我也不會在本機上開發)

接著設定需要用到的環境變數:

eval "$(docker-machine env default)"

然後就可以跑 docker ps 之類的指令了,後續就如同以前常見的操作。這個設定環境變數的指令也可以考慮放到 ~/.bashrc 之類的地方讓他在開啟 terminal 時自動設定好。

Homebrew 的話應該也有類似的搞法,就請自己搜了...

IPv4 的價錢

Hacker News 首頁上看到「IPv4 pricing (hetzner.com)」這篇,裡面的連結「IPv4 pricing」是 Hetzner 這個 hosting 通知 IPv4 將在八月漲價的資料...

可以看到「/24 IP subnet (254 usable IPs)」這組的價錢從「€ 215.13 / € 0 setup」漲到「€ 435.20 / € 4864.00 setup」,看起來是趁機漲了不少 setup fee 來綁使用者。

Hacker News 的討論裡面有提到 e-mail 的應用上還是得用 IPv4,至少 Microsoft 還是不愛 IPv6:

I remember while trying to figure out why Microsoft was blocking emails that IPv6 SMTP source addresses had a much higher risk of being blocked despite having done all the required stuff like PTR, SPF, DKIM. Microsoft's form to submit delisting an IP address does not even accept an IPv6 address: https://sender.office.com/

Stuff like this really hinders adoption.

hmmm,e-mail 的確是痛點 (尤其是 reputation 問題),但其他大多數的應用好像還好?

小企業的蘋果稅將從 30% 降到 15%

Apple 宣佈了小企業的 App Store 抽成將從明年起降價:「Apple announces App Store Small Business Program」。

新聞稿的副標先把重點拉出來了:

New program reduces App Store commission to 15 percent for small businesses earning up to $1 million per year

細節會在 12 月釋出,但蘋果先解釋了有哪些情況會符合 30% -> 15% 的條件,分成現有的帳戶與新的帳戶,基本上是以一百萬美金為標準:

While the comprehensive details will be released in early December, the essentials of the program’s participation criteria are easy and streamlined:

  • Existing developers who made up to $1 million in 2020 for all of their apps, as well as developers new to the App Store, can qualify for the program and the reduced commission.
  • If a participating developer surpasses the $1 million threshold, the standard commission rate will apply for the remainder of the year.
  • If a developer’s business falls below the $1 million threshold in a future calendar year, they can requalify for the 15 percent commission the year after.

不知道對蘋果的影響會有多少,但對於個人開發的 app 應該是可以拿到多一點,大企業的 app 主要都會超過而沒有什麼大影響。

感覺這應該跟最近一些內部文件與電子郵件被公開有關...

Backblaze 與 Fastly 合作

Twitter 上看到的消息,BackblazeFastly,免除 Origin 到 CDN 這段的流量費用:

新聞稿是「Set Your Content Free With Fastly and Backblaze B2」這篇:

Our new collaboration with Fastly, a global edge cloud platform and CDN, offers an integrated solution that will let you store and serve rich media files seamlessly, free from the lock-in fees and functionality of closed “goliath” cloud storage platforms, and all with free egress from Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage to Fastly.

不過這不是第一家提供這樣的方案,在 2018 年的時候就有跟 Cloudflare 合作,免除了 Origin 端到 CDN 端這段費用:「Backblaze 與 Cloudflare 合作,免除傳輸費用」。

Hacker News 上對實體機房的討論 (雲與地的討論)

看到 Hacker News 上的「Ask HN: Is your company sticking to on-premise servers? Why?」這邊在討論為什麼還是有公司使用傳統的實體機房。

用雲的價值在於彈性,因為雲上加機器的時間成本比傳統實體機房低很多:加的量小的時候,主要的成本就是簽核需要的時間 (即使是電子簽) 與 setup 的時間 (如果沒有自動化),量大的時候可能會需要另外採購。

另外很多雲端服務的廠商除了 IaaS 以外也提供了很多 SaaS 的服務,這點對於建制的成本又降低了不少。

相反的,如果你的需求已經很固定了 (變動不大),而且又已經有一定的規模了,用傳統實體機房自己搭建會便宜很多,即使包含人力維護成本也都還是低很多。

另外討論裡也有提到雲端的頻寬費用,這一直都是雲端的痛點:目前雲上面的頻寬都超貴,所以用規模大一點的雲端公司會透過架構上的設計,把大的流量利用 HTTP/HTTPS 的 CDN 省下來。像是使用 AWSNetflix 設計了 Open Connect,藉以降低頻寬成本。

不過說到頻寬,AWS 的 Amazon Lightsail 就是個有趣的東西了,一樣是在 AWS 的架構內,但帳務上面把整包費用包的跟外面的 VPS 一樣...

省頻寬的方法:終極版本...

看到「Three ways to reduce the costs of your HTTP(S) API on AWS」這邊介紹在 AWS 上省頻寬費用的方法,看了只能一直笑 XD

第一個是降低 HTTP response 裡沒有用到的 header,因為每天有五十億個 HTTP request,所以只要省 1byte 就是省下 USD$0.25/day:

Since we would send this five billion times per day, every byte we could shave off would save five gigabytes of outgoing data, for a saving of 25 cents per day per byte removed.

然後調了一些參數後省下 USD$1,500/month:

Sending 109 bytes instead of 333 means saving $56 per day, or a bit over $1,500 per month.

第二個是想辦法在 TLS 這邊下手,一開始其中一個方向是利用 TLS session resumption 降低第二次連線的成本,但他們發現沒有什麼參數可以調整:

One thing that reduces handshake transfer size is TLS session resumption. Basically, when a client connects to the service for the second time, it can ask the server to resume the previous TLS session instead of starting a new one, meaning that it doesn’t have to send the certificate again. By looking at access logs, we found that 11% of requests were using a reused TLS session. However, we have a very diverse set of clients that we don’t have much control over, and we also couldn’t find any settings for the AWS Application Load Balancer for session cache size or similar, so there isn’t really anything we can do to affect this.

所以改成把 idle 時間拉長 (避免重新連線):

That leaves reducing the number of handshakes required by reducing the number of connections that the clients need to establish. The default setting for AWS load balancers is to close idle connections after 60 seconds, but it seems to be beneficial to raise this to 10 minutes. This reduced data transfer costs by an additional 8%.

再來是 AWS 本身發的 SSL certification 太肥,所以他們換成 DigiCert 發的,大幅降低憑證本身的大小,反而省下 USD$200/day:

So given that the clients establish approximately two billion connections per day, we’d expect to save four terabytes of outgoing data every day. The actual savings were closer to three terabytes, but this still reduced data transfer costs for a typical day by almost $200.

這些方法真的是頗有趣的 XDDD

不過這些方法也是在想辦法壓榨降低與 client 之間的傳輸量啦,比起成本來說反而是提昇網路反應速度...

Backblaze 與 Cloudflare 合作,免除傳輸費用

先前知道不少單位會選擇用 CloudFront 的原因就是 S3 到 CloudFront 這段是不需要傳輸費用的。畢竟 CDN 的 hit rate 還是有限,用其他家 CDN 得付這塊費用。

而現在 Backblaze 宣佈跟 Cloudflare 合作,免除掉 Backblaze 到 Cloudflare 的費用:「Backblaze and Cloudflare Partner to Provide Free Data Transfer」。

Today we are announcing that beginning immediately, Backblaze B2 customers will be able to download data stored in B2 to Cloudflare for zero transfer fees.

AWS 這邊會不會有其他動作呢...