This billing-based model is a means of applying service-catalogue or pricing-catalogue charges to virtual machines, high-performance computing, cloud services, static storage and consultancy services.
Consultancy services
Consultancy services can be sourced for research and other externally funded projects, either in the temporary deployment of internal resources, or through recruitment agencies, or from service providers listed on the procurement system.
Expertise |
Price |
Price |
| Project management | R508/h for project manager | R414/h for senior project administrator |
| Business analyst | R508/h | - |
| Software development | R688/h for senior developer | R414/h for developer |
High-Performance Computing
The purpose of a centralised HPC resource is to provide a reliable, scalable and economic computing facility to UCT’s researchers. Given the cost of electricity both for powering and cooling CPUs, it is imperative that UCT provides an affordable and environmentally friendly means of granting researchers access to computing resources.
Class |
Cost |
CPU hours |
Cores |
Days@full |
R/CPUH |
R/core |
| Platinum | R 400 000 | 800 000 | 256 | 130 | 0.50 | R1 562.50 |
| Gold | R 200 000 | 400 000 | 128 | 130 | 0.50 | R1 562.50 |
| Silver | R 100 000 | 200 000 | 64 | 130 | 0.50 | R1 562.50 |
| Bronze | R 50 000 | 100 000 | 40 | 104 | 0.50 | R1 250.00 |
| Steel | R 10 000 | 20 000 | 20 | 42 | 0.50 | R500.00 |
| Copper | R 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | R0 |
Virtual machines
Free trial offering (optional)
ICTS will provide a streamlined interface for creating, running and evaluating operating systems and applications in a virtual machine on Windows or Linux PC’s. The free virtual machine will offer 1 vCPU and 512MB memory as a once-off offering for a free trial period of three months.
Time-based discount (optional)
An annual discount rate can be calculated on the specific type of service/s rendered.
Standard machines
A local cloud-based option currently offers the following standard predefined machine types to researchers. Packages include replication of data once per week.
Prices range according to the server specifications required and are market related and therefore subject to change.
Machine type |
vCPU |
Memory |
Root disk |
| M1-tiny | 1 | 512MB | 1GB |
| M1-small | 1 | 2GB | 20GB |
| M1-medium | 2 | 4GB | 40GB |
| M1-large | 4 | 8GB | 80GB |
| M1-xlarge | 8 | 16GB | 160GB |
| M1-xxlarge | 8 | 32GB | 160GB |
Custom virtual machines
It is possible to create a custom machine type with a specific number of vCPUs and amount of memory if standard predefined machine types in the African Research Cloud are not optimal for the specified workload. Custom machine types may save on the cost of running on a larger, more expensive machine type if all the resources of that machine type are not required.
Prices are calculated per processing speed, memory and storage required. Packages include replication of data once per week.
Machine type |
vCPU |
Memory |
Root disk |
Monthly total |
| Small | 1 | 1GB | 20GB | R156.33/month |
| Medium | 4 | 2GB | 60GB | R533.51/month |
| Large | 8 | 4GB | 120GB | R1 050.92/month |
Cost of storage
Service |
Plan |
Price |
|
One terabyte (TB) storage |
Per year payment |
R240 per TB month (R2 880 per year) |
|
One storage |
Three year payment plan |
R180 per TB per month |
Example:
- If you purchase 1TB of storage for 3 years upfront it will be R180 per month = 1 x R180 x 12 months x 3 years = R6 480.
- If you purchase 3 TB of storage for 3 years upfront it will be R180 per month = 3 x R180 x 12 months x 3 years = R19 440.