Eligibility and Budget Development

The Science Cloud is exclusively available to NASA projects using NASA funds. External funding from non-NASA entities is not accepted. Funding must be formally obligated before any work can begin or resources can be used.

Whether preparing a proposal or managing an existing project, the Science Cloud FinOps team can help you develop accurate cloud cost estimates.

• For proposals: Cost estimates should be incorporated from the beginning of the planning process.
• After award: The Science Cloud team will collaborate with awardees and program managers to allocate funds. Note: Funds designated for Science Cloud usage remain with NASA as the parent organization (rather than being transferred to the recipient institution) and are applied directly to cover cloud costs.

Obligating Funds to Support Cloud Usage

Ames Research Center (ARC) serves as the institutional manager for all commercial cloud contracts supporting the Science Cloud. Principal Investigators (PIs) should coordinate with their Resource Analysts (RAs) to initiate fund transfers to ARC.

Funding requirements include two components:

1. Cloud service costs: Direct expenses for computing, storage, and enterprise support from the cloud provider.
2. Overhead fees: Administrative costs that support the Cloud Computing Services (CCS) team managing the commercial cloud services at ARC.

Transfer Options:

• Direct transfer from NASA Headquarters: HQ sends funds directly to ARC (requires coordination with HQ finance).
• Center-to-Center transfer: An inter-center transfer requiring two separate Purchase Requests (PRs)—one for cloud costs and one for CCS support overhead.

How Funds Are Used: First-In-First-Out (FIFO)

Once obligated, funds enter a pooled system managed by a FIFO rule—the oldest funds pay each monthly invoice.

• Same-year funding can usually be deobligated and used for other allowed work if a cloud account is closed.
• Prior-year funding may not be deobligatable, but can still pay for services used on the cloud contract.

Note: For new cloud accounts, an initial obligation of funds is usually required to familiarize the team with the process and verify funds are available.

The Monthly Billing Cycle

For funds to be obligated in a given month, transfers to ARC must be processed by the designated mid-month deadline. If funds miss the deadline, they appear as "Expected" in the system as a reminder to verify their status.

The billing cycle operates in five phases:

1. Cost Collection: The cloud provider submits billing to NASA's authorized reseller.
2. Institutional Billing: The reseller submits billing to the Cloud and Computing Services (CCS) team at ARC.
3. Cloud Account Allocation: The FinOps team reconciles billing and allocates costs to individual accounts (occurs 1.5 months in arrears).
4. Reporting: The FinOps team generates and distributes comprehensive account reports to PIs.
5. Fund Transfer: PIs work with their RAs to transfer new funds to ARC as needed.