Data Transfer Costs

This page outlines how data transfer costs are incurred when using Hasura Private DDN.

Only applicable to Dedicated Deployments

Data Transfer costs apply only for Private DDN Dedicated deployments. It does not apply to BYOC deployments.

Core Principle: Pass-Through Costs

Hasura DDN leverages underlying cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure) to operate its Data Planes. Data transfer costs charged by these cloud providers on the data plane are passed through directly to the customer as-is, without any markup from Hasura. Billing typically aligns with the cloud provider's measurement and billing cycle (usually based on GB transferred per month) across many dimensions. Each data plane is provisioned on an isolated cloud account so that the usage is isolated to only that particular data plane.

How data transfer costs are incurred

Data transfer generally refers to network traffic moving between different network locations. Costs are typically associated with data leaving a specific network boundary (egress traffic). Common scenarios incurring costs include:

1. Data Egress to Internet: Data sent from the Hasura Data Plane to clients over the public internet. This is often the most significant source of data transfer costs (e.g., API query responses).
2. Inter-Region Transfer: Data moving between different cloud regions (e.g., if your Data Plane is in us-east-1 and communicates with a data source or client in eu-west-1).
3. Inter-Availability Zone (AZ) Transfer: Data moving between different Availability Zones within the same cloud region. Costs for this vary significantly between cloud providers (some offer free transfer within a region).
4. Private Network Connections: Data transferred over dedicated connections like VPC Peering, Private Link, VPN Gateways, etc., may have specific costs depending on the cloud provider and the connection type.
5. Data Ingress: Data entering the Hasura Data Plane (e.g., incoming API requests). This is typically free on major cloud providers, but always verify with the specific provider's pricing.
6. NAT Gateway: All traffic (ingress and egress) to public IP addresses from within a data plane is going through a NAT Gateway, which is probably the most expensive of all the data transfer costs. This typically includes a per hour charge and per GB charge on bytes received and bytes sent.

Cost considerations by deployment model

Dedicated Data Plane

The Data Plane runs in a VPC managed by Hasura within their cloud account (AWS, GCP, or Azure).

• Egress Costs: Primarily driven by API responses sent from the Hasura-managed VPC to the internet or across regions/AZs.
• Private Connectivity Costs: Data transferred between the Hasura-managed VPC and your customer VPC via VPC Peering, Private Link, etc., will incur costs based on the cloud provider's pricing for that specific service.
• Billing: Costs are based on the cloud provider Hasura uses for your dedicated instance and its specific regional pricing. These costs are passed through on your Hasura invoice.

BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) Data Plane

The Data Plane runs within your own cloud account and VPC.

• Egress Costs: Driven by API responses sent from your VPC to the internet (via your NAT Gateway, Internet Gateway, etc.). Also includes any traffic leaving your VPC boundary, such as sending observability data or metadata communication with the Hasura Control Plane (though this is typically low volume).
• Internal Transfer: Traffic between the Data Plane and data sources within the same VPC and AZ is often free, but traffic crossing AZs or VPC peering connections within your own environment may incur costs based on your cloud provider's policies.
• Billing: These data transfer costs will appear directly on your cloud provider bill (AWS, GCP, Azure) as they relate to traffic originating from or traversing within your own VPC. Hasura does not bill separately for data transfer in the BYOC model, as the costs are incurred directly by the customer with their cloud provider.

Estimating and monitoring costs

• Data transfer costs are highly dependent on your specific usage patterns: API payload sizes, request volume, geographic distribution of clients and data sources, and chosen network architectures.
• Use your cloud provider's cost management and monitoring tools (e.g., AWS Cost Explorer, GCP Billing Reports, Azure Cost Management) to track data transfer usage and associated costs, especially for the BYOC model.
• For the Dedicated model, data transfer costs passed through by Hasura will be itemized on your Hasura invoice and will be available on you Hasura Console.

Minimizing costs

• Optimize Payloads: Reduce the size of API responses where possible.
• Regional Locality: Deploy Data Planes in the same region as your primary data sources and user base, if feasible, to minimize cross-region transfer costs.
• Network Architecture: Understand your cloud provider's pricing for different connectivity options (e.g., NAT Gateway vs. VPC Endpoints, Inter-AZ transfer costs).
• Use private connectivity: The most expensive component on data transfer is ingress and egress through a NAT Gateway. All internet traffic from the data plane, that is not via a Load Balancer goes through the NAT Gateway. So, make sure that you are connecting to your data sourcs via private connectivity options like VPC Peering, Private Link etc.

For detailed pricing specifics, always refer to the official documentation of the underlying cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure) for the specific regions and services you are using.

Here are a few helpful links:

• AWS: Understanding data transfer charges
• GCP: Network Pricing
• Azure: Bandwidth Pricing