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The auditing configuration created as part of our Standard AWS Account Configuration includes setting up auditing in all AWS regions. This is to log activity in an AWS account targeting other AWS regions. These costs should be minimal because most folks aren't using regions across the globe. However, it is important that the auditing configuration is in place globally to ensure that any malfeasance in other regions is logged.

What is the AWS Data Egress Waiver? 

AWS offers a Data Egress Waiver that mostly eliminates Data Transfer charges for Cornell. See the AWS blog post about it for more details.

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As of June 2022, individual Cornell AWS accounts cannot buy Reserved Instances or Savings Plans. Cornell has a program that purchases those centrally. See For more information, please contact the Cloud Team. 

Licensing

Does the Cornell Microsoft Agreement cover Microsoft software in AWS?

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Can I use Mechanical Turk with my Cornell AWS account?

• MTurk accounts can be linked to AWS accounts for billing purposes. MTurk accounts so linked have their charges included in the charges for the AWS account.
  • Only one MTurk account can be linked to each AWS account. If that one Turk account is ever closed, the AWS account to which is it linked can never have another Turk account associated with it.
  • In order to
  Mechanical Turk requestor accounts can use the same email address and password as AWS root accounts.
  However, in order to keep these concerns separate, we recommend using different accounts for each of AWS, Amazon.com retail store, and Mechanical Turk. 
  As of December 2020, MTurk accounts can be linked to AWS accounts for billing purposes.
  MTurk accounts linked like that have their charges included in the charges for the AWS account. Please contact cloud-support@cornell.edu to link your MTurk account.
  • With this linkage, research awards/credits issued by AWS to an AWS account can be used for paying MTurk charges.
  • Only one MTurk account can be linked to each AWS account.
  • In order to establish this linkage, the root credentials for the AWS account must be used .
    If the Cloud Team manages the root credentials for an AWS account, we will be happy to help establish this linkage. Please contact cloud-support@cornell.eduand so only the Cloud Team can take this step. Please contact cloud-support@cornell.edu to link your MTurk account.
• For MTurk Requester accounts created after August 2023, the Turk Requester web console is ONLY available using the root login for the AWS account. Since Cornell AWS customers cannot access the root user account for their AWS accounts, they must use the API to manage Turk resources. Alternatively, they can use third-party tools/software that use the API on their behalf to manage Turk resources. For example:
  • Amazon Mechanical Turk Command Line Tools
  • https://www.cloudresearch.com/products/turkprime-mturk-toolkit/
• If your Cornell team/project only needs access to MTurk and not AWS, we can accommodate you. We do this by creating an AWS account and a linked Turk account but not providing access to the AWS account.

Can I use AWS Credits to pay for Mechanical Turk?

We have yet to see credits applied to an AWS account where the credits were scoped to cover Mechanical Turk charges.

If you have credits applied to your AWS account, there will be a link to the list of services eligible to use the credit under "Applicable products" on the AWS Credits summary page (https://us-east-1.console.aws.amazon.com/billing/home?region=us-east-1#/credits). Double-check that link to see if Turk is included in the list of applicable services.

Can I use tagging in Mechanical Turk?

As of 21 Jul 2022 26 Feb 2025  Mechanical Turk resources (projects, etc.) cannot be tagged.
Therefore it is not possible to use "Cost Center" tagging to direct MTurk charges to KFS accounts other than the default KFS account configured for the AWS account.

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