Annoucement: you may now purchase additional computing resources

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Jeff S

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Feb 24, 2009, 4:30:26 PM2/24/09
to Google App Engine
Hi all,

We've just announced that it is now possible to purchase additional
quota for your application. To borrow from our blog post,

"""
We're psyched to announce that developers can now purchase additional
computing resources on App Engine, enabling apps to scale beyond our
free quotas. This has been our most requested improvement to App
Engine and we're thrilled to deliver it, as promised.

You can now set a daily budget for your app that represents the
maximum amount you're willing to pay for computing resources each day.
You allocate this budget across CPU, bandwidth, storage, and email,
and you pay for only what your app consumes beyond the free
thresholds...
"""

More details are available at the following locations:

Blog post:
http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-grow-your-app-beyond-free-quotas.html

Updated quota documentation page:
http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/quotas.html

Documentation on purchasing additional quota:
http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/billing.html

Billing FAQs:
http://code.google.com/appengine/kb/billing.html

Questions? Comments? :-)

Happy coding,

Jeff

Bill

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Feb 24, 2009, 4:33:06 PM2/24/09
to Google App Engine
Congratulations to the entire App Engine team for rolling out this
much requested feature.

There seems to be an inconsistency in the cited storage pricing. The
blog post says $0.15/GB/mo, but the docs and my app dashboard say
$0.005/GB/mo, which is a huge drop in pricing if correct.

Which one is correct?

Regards,
Bill

On Feb 24, 1:30 pm, Jeff S <j...@google.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> We've just announced that it is now possible to purchase additional
> quota for your application. To borrow from our blog post,
>
> """
> We're psyched to announce that developers can now purchase additional
> computing resources on App Engine, enabling apps to scale beyond our
> free quotas. This has been our most requested improvement to App
> Engine and we're thrilled to deliver it, as promised.
>
> You can now set a daily budget for your app that represents the
> maximum amount you're willing to pay for computing resources each day.
> You allocate this budget across CPU, bandwidth, storage, and email,
> and you pay for only what your app consumes beyond the free
> thresholds...
> """
>
> More details are available at the following locations:
>
> Blog post:http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-grow-your-app-beyond-...

Jeff S

unread,
Feb 24, 2009, 4:44:35 PM2/24/09
to Google App Engine
Hi Bill,

I seems Brett replied to your initial post (
http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine/browse_thread/thread/07365a8c5bcb2c0e
)

to quote:

Were do you see $0.005/GB/mo? On the settings page and Dashboard we're
showing the *daily* cost per GB, since that is how we compute actual
cost. 30 * 0.005 = $0.15GB/day.

> And congratulations to the entire App Engine team for rolling out this
> much requested feature.

Thanks!

-Brett

Bill

unread,
Feb 24, 2009, 4:53:10 PM2/24/09
to Google App Engine
On Feb 24, 1:44 pm, Jeff S <j...@google.com> wrote:
> Were do you see $0.005/GB/mo? On the settings page and Dashboard we're
> showing the *daily* cost per GB, since that is how we compute actual
> cost. 30 * 0.005 = $0.15GB/day.

I think the time unit needs to be clarified. In the billing doc
(http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/billing.html), you have:

Resource Unit Unit cost
Stored Data gigabytes per month $0.005

It's confusing, at least to me, that we're talking about $0.15/GB/mo.

In the dashboard, it would be helpful to see $0.005/GByte/day.

Brett Slatkin

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Feb 24, 2009, 5:11:22 PM2/24/09
to google-a...@googlegroups.com

Ah! I see it now. Good catch. We're fixing this. Thanks!

Tom M.

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Feb 24, 2009, 5:38:43 PM2/24/09
to Google App Engine
Fantastic! While personally I hope not to have to shell out too much
coin, I'll contribute my $0.02 now and then. ;-)

I can quite sincerely thank Google for teaching this "old dog" new
tricks. I have an application (Wine by the Bar) that runs on the
Android phone and is backed by GAE. Throw in Google maps, products,
picasa, blogspot, youtube and there are no boundaries to what is
possible.

Here's to hoping that I never have to play in anyone else's cloud!
Thanks Google!

On Feb 24, 4:30 pm, Jeff S <j...@google.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> We've just announced that it is now possible to purchase additional
> quota for your application. To borrow from our blog post,
>
> """
> We're psyched to announce that developers can now purchase additional
> computing resources on App Engine, enabling apps to scale beyond our
> free quotas. This has been our most requested improvement to App
> Engine and we're thrilled to deliver it, as promised.
>
> You can now set a daily budget for your app that represents the
> maximum amount you're willing to pay for computing resources each day.
> You allocate this budget across CPU, bandwidth, storage, and email,
> and you pay for only what your app consumes beyond the free
> thresholds...
> """
>
> More details are available at the following locations:
>
> Blog post:http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-grow-your-app-beyond-...

bej34

unread,
Feb 24, 2009, 8:30:43 PM2/24/09
to Google App Engine
I'm still a bit confused....can we now upload files larger than 1MB or
can we just upload more than the 1 GB total storage quota. For
example, can my blob property be the equivalent of a 50MB video file?

Jeff S

unread,
Feb 24, 2009, 8:46:49 PM2/24/09
to Google App Engine
Hi bej34,

No, the 1MB size limit for a datastore entity is still in place, but
now you could store more of them ;-) Also if this is a file which is
being uploaded to your application, the size limit is 10MB, but it
sounded like you meant items in the datastore.

Thank you,

Jeff

DenNukem

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Feb 24, 2009, 10:52:44 PM2/24/09
to Google App Engine
Looking at new quotas I see "Data Sent to [datastore] API" capped at
"153 MByte/min".
Uhm. This comes down to 2.5Mbyte/sec.
How does this qualify for the "easy to scale applicatins" promise if
the best I'm going to get is 2.5Mbyte/sec worth of disk writes?
I mean that's pretty cool for a single server - 20mbit/sec of
continous writes is great, but this being the limitation for the
entire app?

Also, what is the point of the 740Mbyte/min of incoming bandwidth cap
if you can not store more than 20% of the incoming data?

This is all veyr confusing. Please explain.


On Feb 24, 1:30 pm, Jeff S <j...@google.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> We've just announced that it is now possible to purchase additional
> quota for your application. To borrow from our blog post,
>
> """
> We're psyched to announce that developers can now purchase additional
> computing resources on App Engine, enabling apps to scale beyond our
> free quotas. This has been our most requested improvement to App
> Engine and we're thrilled to deliver it, as promised.
>
> You can now set a daily budget for your app that represents the
> maximum amount you're willing to pay for computing resources each day.
> You allocate this budget across CPU, bandwidth, storage, and email,
> and you pay for only what your app consumes beyond the free
> thresholds...
> """
>
> More details are available at the following locations:
>
> Blog post:http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-grow-your-app-beyond-...

Matija

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Feb 25, 2009, 7:17:11 AM2/25/09
to Google App Engine
How can '...An application operating entirely within the free quotas
can process around 30 active dynamic requests at any given moment...'
if maximum rate for CPU time within free default quota is 15 CPU-min/
min ? Should you correct that statement to 15 active dynamic
requests ?

Pozdrav, MATijA.

On Feb 24, 10:30 pm, Jeff S <j...@google.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> We've just announced that it is now possible to purchase additional
> quota for your application. To borrow from our blog post,
>
> """
> We're psyched to announce that developers can now purchase additional
> computing resources on App Engine, enabling apps to scale beyond our
> free quotas. This has been our most requested improvement to App
> Engine and we're thrilled to deliver it, as promised.
>
> You can now set a daily budget for your app that represents the
> maximum amount you're willing to pay for computing resources each day.
> You allocate this budget across CPU, bandwidth, storage, and email,
> and you pay for only what your app consumes beyond the free
> thresholds...
> """
>
> More details are available at the following locations:
>
> Blog post:http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-grow-your-app-beyond-...

Gopal Patel

unread,
Feb 25, 2009, 8:37:55 AM2/25/09
to Google App Engine
There is a cap at 30000 Request per Second. well I surely know that ,
flikr,facebook,youtube or any big out there is getting more hits than
that...

so possibility of making some next generation supercool site only on
google app engine is impossible ??

{ yeh , i know , the chances that my application goes to that level is
very know , but having confidance that , if it goes by some chance , i
don't have to worry about server side
is a good relief.... -- another idea is , if it goes to that level ,
surely i will have enough fund to buy my own server farms -- but
that's exactly we don't want to do -- and anyhow , we are
giving money so why there is cap at 30000 Req per second ???? :D }

Pete Koomen

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Feb 25, 2009, 9:39:49 AM2/25/09
to Google App Engine
Hi Matija,

The per-minute CPU limit is independent of the number of active
requests you can run. Let's assume your requests were taking on
average 200ms of CPU time and completed in 200ms wall clock time, to
keep things simple. There are at least three limits that come into
play here. Looking at the free quotas (for apps that *do not* have
billing enabled):

Per-minute quota on CPU Time: 15min/min = 900,000ms/min = 4500 req/
min = 75 req/sec
Per-minute quota on HTTP Requests: 7400 req/min = ~123req/sec
30 active simultaneous requests: (1000ms/sec / 200ms/req) * 30 =
150req/sec

In this case, the per-minute CPU Time quota is the limiting factor.
If you were to halve the CPU & wall time of each requests, then the
per-minute HTTP Request quota would become the limiting factor. Does
this make sense?

Keep in mind, the free quotas will be changing on May 25th, 2009. See
http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/quotas.html#Free_Changes for
more details.

Pete


f each of your requests takes 200ms of CPU time on average, you'd have
enough CPU per minute to handle roughly 75 requests per second

bFlood

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Feb 25, 2009, 10:43:11 AM2/25/09
to Google App Engine
hi peter

is the per-minute CPU Time quota expandable with the new billing
options?

brian

Mike

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Feb 25, 2009, 11:05:54 AM2/25/09
to Google App Engine
I am watching your changes in the quota system from the perspective of
wanting to run massive parallel applications on it. Considered that
way, the changes are a definite improvement, though not quite to the
point where it would be worth it for us. In particular, if I read
your docs right, one application can really use about 72 simultaneous
cores, due to hard quota restrictions. It is nice, though that
apparently time is consumed "by the minute", rather than "by the
hour", which is what Amazon does, I think. One further problem is
that 10 cents per minute is probably too expensive, versus the best
alternative we have available (using our own cluster resources).

I'm aware that massive parallel apps are not your goal, but still,
it's interesting to see how close you're getting...

Mike

peterk

unread,
Feb 25, 2009, 11:30:24 AM2/25/09
to Google App Engine
The quota is actually 500 requests per second..or 30,000 per minute,
or 43m per day.

Google says this should be enough to withstand 'the heaviest of
slashdottings', but that if you need more, you can request a raising
of caps here:

http://code.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=AppEngineCPURequest

It is kind of my question now too, though..the question of just how
big can an app get on GAE..and how far Google would work with you
beyond the quotas here if your app was really successful and really
needed more. The next facebook might need to go well beyond these
quotas (?) :)

Peter Koomen

unread,
Feb 25, 2009, 1:53:54 PM2/25/09
to Google App Engine
Note: CPU time is charged at a rate of $0.10 per *hour*--time is
measured by the second, and we round up to the nearest cent, so using
30 minutes of usage beyond the free threshold on a given day would
cost $0.05 :)

Pete

Matija

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Feb 25, 2009, 2:00:15 PM2/25/09
to Google App Engine
Hi Peter,

I understand that 30 active simultaneous limit is only for free quota
apps and I have already enabled billing.

Let's forget for now about request/min quota. Point is that 'free'
apps could have for half minute long up to 30 000ms/sec burst rate (30
active dynamic requests), but next 30 second they should have no
request at all, so that they could stay under 15 000 ms/sec (15min/
min) cpu burst rate quota because it is calculated in minute interval.
Am I right ? Two quotas exists because of different collection
interval.

'Billing' apps should worry only on cpu burst rate quota. Plus both
kinds of application should think about request / second quota.

Mike

unread,
Feb 25, 2009, 5:09:56 PM2/25/09
to Google App Engine
At work, a run of our primary app occupies 1400 cores (700 real
cores?) for several hours. So, I might estimate that that'd cost
something like $200 per run. Not negligible, given that the hardware
cost is already partly sunk. Like I said, I know this isn't Google's
goal necessarily, but it might be interesting to capture some of this
market, too. I wonder if a volume discount would be economical.

(Actually, the app I have in mind, though written in Python, also
requires a custom C module for the CPU-intensive loop. IIRC, Google
doesn't (yet?) allow this.)

Mike

RAT

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Feb 26, 2009, 4:22:04 PM2/26/09
to Google App Engine
It's just me or Brazil is not on the list of available countries able
to purchase additional Quota?

Thanks

On Feb 24, 6:30 pm, Jeff S <j...@google.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> We've just announced that it is now possible to purchase additional
> quota for your application. To borrow from our blog post,
>
> """
> We're psyched to announce that developers can now purchase additional
> computing resources on App Engine, enabling apps to scale beyond our
> free quotas. This has been our most requested improvement to App
> Engine and we're thrilled to deliver it, as promised.
>
> You can now set a daily budget for your app that represents the
> maximum amount you're willing to pay for computing resources each day.
> You allocate this budget across CPU, bandwidth, storage, and email,
> and you pay for only what your app consumes beyond the free
> thresholds...
> """
>
> More details are available at the following locations:
>
> Blog post:http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-grow-your-app-beyond-...

Jeff S

unread,
Feb 26, 2009, 7:58:06 PM2/26/09
to Google App Engine
Hi RAT,

You are correct. Here's an FAQ on how to proceed if you are in one of
these unlisted countries: http://code.google.com/appengine/kb/billing.html#unlisted

Happy coding,

Jeff

Andy Freeman

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Feb 27, 2009, 11:12:09 AM2/27/09
to Google App Engine
Is there any way for an application to know that it's run into quota
problems or, better yet, where it is wrt usage.

This would be useful for applications that have some flexibility in
how they behave (some can adjust refresh rates) and could also be used
to trigger an e-mail to an administrator.

On Feb 24, 1:30 pm, Jeff S <j...@google.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> We've just announced that it is now possible to purchase additional
> quota for your application. To borrow from our blog post,
>
> """
> We're psyched to announce that developers can now purchase additional
> computing resources on App Engine, enabling apps to scale beyond our
> free quotas. This has been our most requested improvement to App
> Engine and we're thrilled to deliver it, as promised.
>
> You can now set a daily budget for your app that represents the
> maximum amount you're willing to pay for computing resources each day.
> You allocate this budget across CPU, bandwidth, storage, and email,
> and you pay for only what your app consumes beyond the free
> thresholds...
> """
>
> More details are available at the following locations:
>
> Blog post:http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-grow-your-app-beyond-...

Andy Freeman

unread,
Feb 27, 2009, 11:16:06 AM2/27/09
to Google App Engine
The issue has already been raised as
http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=655
> > Jeff- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Brett Slatkin

unread,
Mar 1, 2009, 11:19:31 PM3/1/09
to google-a...@googlegroups.com
Hi Andy,

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 8:12 AM, Andy Freeman <ana...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Is there any way for an application to know that it's run into quota
> problems or, better yet, where it is wrt usage.
>
> This would be useful for applications that have some flexibility in
> how they behave (some can adjust refresh rates) and could also be used
> to trigger an e-mail to an administrator.

I agree having more detail about usage and quota problems would be
very useful. These are features we would like to investigate further,
though we have nothing to announce presently.

-Brett

Message has been deleted

br...@ifeets.com

unread,
Mar 30, 2009, 10:56:34 PM3/30/09
to Google App Engine
Maybe I missed a memo on this but when will you be able to create more
than 10 apps or use one app for multiple domains (SAAS)?
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