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Cloud Services

The IT Division encourages the use of cloud computing for science as an effective way to to meet specific research and computing needs. Many researchers have found that cloud computing works well for quickly bringing up computing infrastructure and that it scales well for bursty workloads such as data releases. Others have found that cloud tools for machine learning, search and workflow orchestration are very effective.

To facilitate cloud use at Berkeley Lab, Science IT has secured master payer contracts with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform. These master payer agreements provide LBNL scientists, staff, and other affiliated researchers with access to the full suite of AWS and GCP services without use of a purchase order or need to create a contract vehicle. This is considered a self-managed cloud offering as you are expected to manage your own usage of services in your chosen cloud environment.

Some of the benefits of using cloud computing services through the Lab’s Master Payer agreement are:

  • LBNL and DOE have negotiated better pricing and significant discounts for both AWS and GCP as compared to regular commercial list pricing.
  • Cost savings and discounts are automatically applied as part of the program.
  • There are no fees or charges for having an account on either service You only pay for the services and resources that are actually in use on either service
  • An 11% overhead fee is charged (procurement pass-through burden)
  • Charges are applied monthly via recharge using a standard Project ID (PID)
  • You have access to Account Management, Cloud Solution Architects, and Subject Matter experts through the Science IT Consultants, who can assist with how to use cloud services, optimize costs, and provide technical guidance on best practices, but do not provide an ongoing service model.
  • Science IT works with AWS and GCP provides various trainings throughout the year and also works to provide access to experts for consultations

Accessing Cloud Services

The process for getting a cloud account (AWS) or project (Google Cloud) are different. Users requesting an AWS account will need to work with the ScienceIT cloud team to get an account, and users needing a Google Cloud project can create their own projects after completing an initial 30-45 minute discussion with the ScienceIT cloud team.