How Palette Calculates Your Resource Usage
Palette and Palette VerteX measure the usage of clusters deployed to different cloud, data center, and edge infrastructures. We measure usage in Kilo-Core-Hours (kCh).
This page explains what kCh is, how Palette calculates your resource usage, and where you can find the current usage metrics.
What is kCh?
kCh, short for kilo-core-hours, represents a unit of computational time. This value is a product of the cluster node count, the number of CPUs per node, and the duration of time these nodes are in use. To improve readability, we divide the product by 1000.
For instance, if you continuously deploy a single-node cluster with 16 CPU for 24 hours, you will use about 0.39 kCh. Alternatively, if you continuously deploy a three-node cluster that has 16 CPU per node for 24 hours, you will use about 1.2 kCh.
Your Current Usage
Palette and Palette VerteX display your current resource usage on the Project Overview page. Because we do not charge infrastructure costs for Edge and MAAS clusters, the resource usage calculated by Palette and Palette VerteX excludes resources used by your Edge or MAAS clusters.
By default, Palette offers 25 kCh per month, but you can always request on-demand compute capacity by clicking Upgrade now in the bottom-left corner of Palette. To continue deploying clusters, you must stay within the resource usage limit in your Palette or Palette VerteX instance.
If you have the tenant admin role, you may also view the resource usage by each of your project in the Tenant Overview page. Resource usage by different projects are displayed on the bar chart by different colors. This usage also does not include Edge or MAAS clusters. For more information about roles and permissions in Palette, refer to User & Role Management.
The exclusion of Edge and MAAS clusters in kCh calculations was implemented in the Palette release 4.5.20 and did not revise historical data. Therefore, it is normal to notice a drop in your resource usage after Jan 18th, 2025 for Palette SaaS if you have Edge or MAAS workloads in your project. If you are using a self-hosted instance, you may also notice a drop in project monthly kCh after you upgrade to release 4.5.20 or later.
Even though your resource usage in the past may have included Edge and MAAS clusters, we have never charged and will not charge you for kCh usage by Edge and MAAS clusters since you provide the infrastructure for those clusters yourself.
If you'd like to discuss other compute capacities, contact us at support@spectrocloud.com.