D Budget Templates

If you want to apply for a grant and you plan to use the AnVIL platform for data storage, data movement, and data analysis, you can include the anticipated costs in your proposal. We have created a template for the budget justification paragraph of your grant proposal. The documents described in the following provide you with insightful knowledge.

D.0.1 Types of Costs

There are three types of costs that are typically occur when performing operations on the Google Cloud Platform.

1. Cost for Computing is driven by your particular CPU and memory requirements. Importantly, you can save money if your work can tolerate being interrupted (also known as a preemptible compute resource). In this case, you pay less per hour with the understanding that your work may be interrupted by a customer willing to pay more. Details and current pricing can be found here.

2. Cost for Storage is driven by the amount of data and the length of time you wish to store the data. Here, you can save money if you have data that you do not plan to access frequently. This would be the case for raw data that has already been processed, backups, and archives. Details and current pricing can be found here.

3. Cost for Network Usage (egress) applies to data being transferred out of a Cloud resource. In this context, a Cloud resource refers to a set of computers in a particular region. This would apply, for example, if you transferred data from Google’s East Coast computers to Amazon’s West Coast computers. In general, while it’s free to upload data to the Cloud, you will incur costs when downloading data to your local computer or between Cloud regions. Details and current pricing can be found here.

D.0.2 Usage of Budget Templates

In a first step, you can use the template Google Sheet AnVIL_Cost_Estimator to calculate costs for computing, storage, and network usage (egress) for your proposal. In a second step, you can use the template Google Doc AnVIL_Budget_Justification to create a budget justification paragraph for your proposal by including the information highlighted in pink (mostly copying entries from your Google Sheet AnVIL_Cost_Estimator). Please download and adapt both documents to your project.

Please check that the prices are up to date by using the links listed below or in the AnVIL_Cost_Estimator.

For further guidance, you can have a look at a completed document AnVIL_Budget_Justification_Example.