Google Cloud virtual instances disappear after trial? - google-cloud-platform

I created two virtual machine instances. After the trial they disappear. I already search in the compute engine menu but i can't find anything. Do you know if i can recover them or what can i do?.

After your trial ends, the resources you created during the trial are stopped, but can be restored if you upgrade to a paid account within 30 days.
Within that 30-day period, you can also contact Google Billing Support to export any data you stored in Google GCP services (other than on Compute Engine). After 30 days, your data and resources are not available, even if you upgrade.
You can find more detail at this link.

Update: 2020-12-18
I just have had a chat with google billing support. They confirm that they remove data after 30 days as state here https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/gcp-free-tier#end (They gave me this link )
After the VMs are removed , they will gone forever. You cannot do anything about it.
And they also said that they DO NOT give any email warning that the service is ending and the VMs will be removed.
Very surprised about this and this is like a problem for at least 2 years. And they do nothing about it. It is just one email and very very important one!
They also said "we will send a feedback to our engineering team regarding this incident" Hope that their engineering team will create this email next time.
However, if you have a paid account, it will be different. You will get a warning email ( just one , as I understand) and you will have 7 + 30 days before your vm will be deleted. This is from the chat:
If the account missed a payment, the billing account will go to "Delinquent Status" and after 7 days, the account will be suspended and the service will be interrupted. Which means, the VM's will stop to function.
Once the account is in a delinquent status, the moment it was entered delinquency, you'll receive a notice via email that you need to update the form of payment to remove the delinquency, if not, the account will be suspended.
Once it's suspended, the project will start to go to the period when the project needs to be link to an active account within 30 days, otherwise, the data and resources are gradually deleted from the project if not linked to a working billing account in a span of 30 days.
After the 30 day recovery period, all resources on the project are fully deleted and there are no more means of recovering them, that's what will happen and the stages will experience "if" the account missed a payment or when the card link in the account expires.
As I understand , it will be one email only.

Related

Why am I billed for hourly AWS workspace when it's stopped?

I configured two hourly performance AWS workspaces about 2 months ago. The fee for each is 9.75/mo + .47/hour.
I used each maybe only 3 hours each so I would expect a bill of about $22.32 ((9.75 x 2) + (.47 x 6))but my bill was over $70 (which equals about 100 hours). I reached out to support and this is what they concluded:
As per checking with the Service Team, they have advised that WorkSpaces are billed on a monthly basis, and you pay only for the WorkSpaces you launch that allow end-users to access the documents, applications and resources they need with the device of their choice, including laptops, iPad, Kindle Fire, or Android tablets. So even if the service is on a stop mode, as long as users keep on accessing to the documents, desktops or even domains you have the WorkSpace associated to, will incur in charges.
I am the only user and I didn't interact with the stopped workspaces. I don't have any other AWS services interacting with these workspaces. I don't even understand how users could access "documents, desktops or even domains you have the WorkSpace associated to" if the workspace is stopped.
I have trouble drilling down to the necessary level of detail using the AWS billing dashboard - so I just feel like I have a blindspot here. Why am I getting billed so much? How can I get more details about these Workspace charges?
AWS Support actually called me. They were a big help in demystifying the charges. The short answer is that I'm a dummy. But I wanted to provide an explanation, info and links for others who want to get more details about their own usage and bill.
AWS has a few other helpful ways to get more info. The first was the bill itself (From your billing home page click on 'Bills' in the top left). The first thing I learned was that (1) my bill was $50 not $70. I might have combined my Jan and Feb bill or thought their 'estimate' was the bill. Either way - my baseline was wrong. (2) I also had an RDS instance running which accounted for $16. (3) Finally I could see an exact breakdown of workspace charges. There was the base monthly charge of 9.75. Then there was the .47 hourly charge for 22 hours which accounted for 10.34. The charges we're adding up - but the hours seemed too high.
This was great but I asked if there was a way to see when I used those 22 hours because that was still more than I had recorded myself. He directed me to the cost explorer. On the cost explorer specifically there was a histogram with a button on the top right to "View in Cost Explorer".
There I was able to view how much I was billed per day. Using the group by options on the top we grouped by 'Service' to see this
This showed that nearly all of those hours were on one day. I think that's when I set things up and might not have had AutoStop toggled. So just make sure you have your workspace configured for AutoStop if that's best for you.

Is it still possible to utilize a GPU on GCP on a individual account?

I have already activated billing but every time I tried to expand the quota it tells me:
'Unfortunately, we are unable to grant you additional quota at this time. If this is a new project please wait 48h until you resubmit the request or until your Billing account has additional history'
I used to be able to get a GPU, but I can't seem to get one right now.
The message is quite clear. The GPU quota increase will be gradually allowed as your Billing account will accumulate additional history
If you want to speed up the process, you might want to get in touch with the
Google Sales Team
As previously mentioned. There is really not much that you can do except for two things:
Reply back to that email so your case gets reopened and you get to talk with a real person and not a bot.
If the real person still tells you that it's not possible to grant you the quota, then consider requesting a lower quantity, if you're already requesting only 1 GPU, then yes, go to the Sales Team and explain your need, they may be able to vouch for you.

GCP "12 Months 300$ Free Trial" removed due to billing account change?

I registered few months ago on the google cloud platform for the "12 months 300$ trial" to test the possibilities of the cloud.
On top of gcp there was always a banner saying how many days and how many $ left for trial period.
When the first billing with 0$ came in, I got a lot of trouble with our accountant because the bill wasn't set on our company but personal/private.
After a lot of problems adding a new payment method for a new billing account (also with Google Billing Support) - Long story short: I had to delete the private billing account and added a new company billing account.
Now I do not have that free trial banner with information anymore.
Rereading the conditions I'd say there should be no problem:
1.1 The Free Trial applies only to the use of the Services.
1.2 Only new Google Cloud Platform customers are eligible to participate in the Free Trial.
1.3 The Free Trial starts when Customer creates a billing account in the Google Cloud Console (“Free Trial Start Date”) and ends on the earlier of (i) the date that Customer’s fees for usage exceeds $300 or (ii) 12 months from the Free Trial Start Date.
So:
How can I verify if I am still in the trial phase?
If I got kicked out, what can I do to continue the trial phase?
Is there anything else I'm probably missing?
Thank you for your time!
Sidenote (or better said my opinion):
Until now I didn't try more than the AppEngine.
With all the problems that I had with the payment method verification and the support (took 1 1/2 months), now loosing the free trial phase, I must say that I did not enjoy this whole bureaucracy in any way and am almost done with the "cloud hype", feeling to me like a "big giant buzzword bureaucracy monster" :'(.

Google Cloud project resources removed after trial periode

I used Google Cloud for 1 year and after that I stopped using it for almost a year.
Now I want to use it again, but the resources (VM'S, Snapshots, etc) are removed by Google. Accordering to Google, all resources will be removed after the trial periode has been exceeded by 30 day's.
Is is possible to file a restore request (whole project, or at least a VM or Snapshot? Paid, or unpaid restore doesn't matter for me.
Please advice.
Thank you.
upgraded my account to a paid account (pay as you go). But still no resources.
Only my project name is visible.
The GCP Free Tier documentation is very clear in this aspect, as it states in the "Recovering data" section:
Recovering Data
Contact Google Billing Support to export any data you stored in GCP services (other than on Compute Engine) during your trial period. Your data and resources are only available for 30 days after the free trial ends.
Maybe a couple days after the 30 days you would still have a chance to request it and have it done, but more than that is very unlikely. This kind of deadlines are in place to protect and free some of the shared resources of GCP.
Your only realistic possibility here is contacting GCP support, explain your situation and hope that something could be recovered, but understand that it's very unlikely.

Failed Billing Payment AWS CVS missing

Company credit card expiry passed and new expiry details needed putting onto AWS payment methods. Since then billing has failed. I am assuming its because CVS number is not taken by AWS and the bank are rejecting it. (The card has been used for many other things since to make payment so its active).
Is there another way to get around this as the bank won't allow to bypass it. I can't believe there arent any posts from others with similar issues as the payment methods for AWS are rather limiting.
Its ran seamless for a few years now until this happened and I can't get an answer out of ticket system on AWS.
Many thanks.
Its randomly started working again. Very strange.