Cost Management for ML Projects using GCP Billing

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Managing costs effectively is crucial for running Machine Learning (ML) projects on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). One way to do this is by setting up budgets and alerts to monitor your GCP spend. Pulumi allows you to define infrastructure as code, which can be used to create and manage GCP Billing Budgets programmatically.

Below, I will guide you through the process of creating a budget for your ML projects in GCP using Pulumi with Python. This will involve setting up a budget with a specified amount, filtering by specific projects and services, and configuring alerts. The `gcp.billing.Budget` resource from Pulumi will be used for this purpose.

Here's the step-by-step explanation followed by the program:

1. **Import necessary libraries**: We start by importing Pulumi's GCP library which provides us with the classes and functions needed to interact with GCP Billing.

2. **Create a budget**: We will define an instance of `gcp.billing.Budget` that specifies the amount for the budget, the projects and services to include, and the notification rules for alerts.

3. **Filter projects and services**: In the budget, we filter the ML projects and services that you want to include in the budget. This allows for more granular control over which costs should be counted towards the budget.

4. **Set alert rules**: We'll set up alert rules based on percentage thresholds of the budget amount to trigger notifications when your spend exceeds a certain portion of your budget.

5. **Export outputs**: At the end of the program, Pulumi allows us to export any outputs that we may need, such as the budget's ID or the name.

6. **Pulumi Stack Outputs**: Finally, we can declare stack outputs, which are similar to return values that you can query after the program has been deployed and run.

Below is the Pulumi program in Python that implements these steps:

```python
import pulumi
import pulumi_gcp as gcp

# Replace the following variables with your own values
project_id = 'your-gcp-project-id'  # The ID of the project where the budget should be applied
billing_account_id = 'your-gcp-billing-account-id'  # The ID of the billing account for the project

# Create a GCP Billing Budget for the specified project and budget amount
ml_project_budget = gcp.billing.Budget("ml-project-budget",
    amount={
        "specifiedAmount": {
            "units": "1000",  # Set the budget amount to $1000
            "currencyCode": "USD"  # Set the currency to USD
        }
    },
    budget_filter={
        "projects": [f"projects/{project_id}"],  # Apply the budget to the specified project
        "services": ["all"]  # Specify the services to include, "all" for all services
    },
    all_updates_rule={
        "pubsubTopic": f"projects/{project_id}/topics/budget-notifications",  # Pub/Sub topic for budget notifications
        "schemaVersion": "1.0"
    },
    threshold_rules=[{
        "thresholdPercent": 0.9  # Notify when 90% of the budget is consumed
    }],
    billing_account=billing_account_id
)

# Export the budget ID and name as stack outputs
pulumi.export("budget_id", ml_project_budget.id)
pulumi.export("budget_name", ml_project_budget.display_name)
```

In this program:
- We first define constants for your GCP project and billing account IDs, which should be replaced with your actual GCP project and billing account information.
- We then create the `ml_project_budget` resource, setting a budget of $1000, applying it to all services within the specified project, setting up Pub/Sub notifications, and configuring an alert rule to trigger at 90% spend of the budget.
- Lastly, we export the ID and name of the created budget, which can be accessed from the Pulumi CLI after deployment.

Remember to set up a Pub/Sub topic (e.g., "budget-notifications") in your project to receive budget alerts. This topic would work with other systems that react to budget notifications, such as automated scripts to analyze spend or notify your team.

By running the above program with Pulumi, a GCP Billing Budget will be created according to your specified parameters, which will help in managing costs for your ML projects.

Please ensure that you have the necessary permissions and billing account configurations set up in your GCP account to create and manage budgets. You also need to have the Pulumi CLI installed and configured with your GCP credentials to deploy this infrastructure.