Alicloud is the cloud offering from the Alibaba group. Getting started with Alicloud is pretty simple but has a few quirks you need to be aware of.
While GCP and AWS has accounts you can sign up to and then choose resources across regions, Alicloud actually has separate login pages that are region specific. While most features are the same one of the things you will need to keep in mind should you need to use tools like Terraform etc, is that based on your account, there might be tweaks that are needed to make your infrastructure actually work
So Alicloud actually has separate login pages for International, Japan and China sites that need to be accessed from their respective URL’s
First look once you log in is pretty intuitive and reminds you of a mishmash between Azure, GCP and AWS. So it’s pretty easy to get started
While we will be getting into specifics in future posts, the welcome mail that comes in links back to the free trials and current free trial offers. Which are pretty generous and includes certification!
Free Trial Offers
Users who meet the above criteria are eligible to receive the following free trial offers:
Elastic Compute Services (ECS)
For Individual Free Trial, you can use the following services free for 1 calendar month:
• One of the following ECS instances: ecs.t5-lc2m1.nano, ecs.t5-lc1m1.small, ecs.t5-lc1m2.small, ecs.t5-lc1m2.large
• 30-40 GB ultra cloud disk or SSD disk.
• 50 GB downstream data transfer*.
For Enterprise Free Trial, you can use the following services for free:
• One ecs.sn1ne.large ECS instance for 2 months, or one ecs.sn1ne.xlarge for 1 month
• 40 GB ultra cloud disk or SSD disk.
• 1 TB downstream data transfer*.
* The data transfer is only applicable for your free trial ECS instance. And the upstream data transfer is always free.
Server Load Balancer (SLB)
For Individual Free Trial, you will receive a USD $15 SLB credit, which can be applied to reduce the SLB usage fee. The usage can be 750+ hours rental for one public network shared-performance SLB instance and 50-150 GB downstream traffic*.
For Enterprise Free Trial, you will be given a USD $55 SLB credit, which can be applied to reduce the SLB usage fee. The usage can be 750+ hours rental for one public network shared-performance SLB instance and 300-400 GB downstream traffic*.
* The actual traffic volume varies depending on the data center you select, and the upstream data transfer is always free.
Function Compute
Get the following services for free when you use the Function Compute, and there’s no expire date:
• 1 million calls free each month
• 400,000 GB-seconds free each month
* The free calls and execution duration are automatically cleared at the beginning of each calendar month.
ApsaraDB for RDS
For Individual Free Trial, you can use one instance free for 1 calendar month:
• Choose one database types from MySQL 5.6 High-availability, MySQL 5.7 Basic, or PostgreSQL 9.4 High-availability.
• The instance is with the following configurations:
- 1 Core CPU, 1 GB Memory
- 20 GB Storage
For Enterprise Free Trial, you can use one instance free for 2 calendar months:
• Choose one database types from MySQL 5.6 High-availability, Microsoft SQL Server 2016 WEB-basic or PostgreSQL 9.4 High-availability.
• The instance is with the following configurations:
- 2 Core CPU, 4 GB Memory
- 20 GB Storage
ApsaraDB for Redis
For Individual Free Trial, you can use one 4GB Master-Slave instance free for 1 calendar month, with standard architecture and classic network.
For Enterprise Free Trial, you can use one 8GB Master-Slave instance free for 2 calendar months, with standard architecture and classic network.
ApsaraDB for MongoDB
For Individual Free Trial, you can use one instance with the following configurations free for 1 calendar month:
• 1 Core, 2 GB
• 20 GB storage
• WiredTiger storage engine
• Classic network
For Enterprise Free Trial, you can use one instance with the following configurations free for 2 calendar months:
• 2 Core, 4 GB
• 20 GB storage
• WiredTiger storage engine
• Classic network
Object Storage Service (OSS)
For Individual Free Trial, you will be given a USD $5 OSS credit, which can be applied towards any of the following：
• Standard Storage 100 GB
• 50,000 Put/Post/Delete in total
• 50,000 Get/Head in total
For Enterprise Free Trial, you will be given a USD $12 OSS credit, which can be applied towards any of the following：
• Standard Storage 500 GB
• 500,000 Put/Post/Delete in total
• 500,000 Get/Head in total
Table Store
You will get a USD $19 USD Table Store credit, which can be applied towards one of the following:
The usage can be 100GB storage on Capacity type of instance for 750 hrs, or 50GB storage on High-performance type of instance for 750 hrs, and 50+ GB downstream traffic (the upstream data transfer is always free).
Network Attached Storage (NAS)
You will get USD $17 Table Store credit, which can be applied towards 100GB storage use for 1 calendar month.
Content Moderation
For the 1st 31 days you activate Content Moderation, you get 3,000 images to scan for free each day.
API Gateway
For the 1st year you activate API Gateway, you get 1 million free calls each month.
DirectMail
• Free for 6 calendar months
• 50,000 emails in total
Enterprise Distributed Application Service (EDAS)
The standard edition of the EDAS service, which supports at most 20 instances, is free for 1 calendar month.
Developer After-sales Support Plan
The Developer After-sale Support Plan is free for 1 calendar month and includes the following services:
• Unlimited tickets for technical support
• Supported by senior technical staff
• Tickets response time within 8 hours
Certification: Operate & Manage ECS
• Unlimited viewing of our training video
• 2 chances to take the certification exam for freePretty sweet if you ask me.
Considering the automation aspects of Alicloud, it’s good to see Terraform providers already in place – so this should be pretty straightforward for people already used to Terraform provisioning and infrastructure build workflows
https://www.terraform.io/docs/providers/alicloud/index.html
Stay tuned for more!
