Operational_Instructions/Pinecone_for_LiveRAG.md

# Using Pinecone

## 1. Using the Pre-Built Index
We provide access to a pre-built Pinecone index, which you are welcome to use.  
Follow the instructions [here](Indices_Usage_Examples_for_LiveRAG.ipynb) to use it without costs. 

## 2. Building Your Own Index
In addition to the pre-built Pinecone index, participants are encouraged to experiment with building their own indices.

In order to use the provided credits, you will have to open your personal Pinecone account and apply the credits. 

### Getting Credits
Pinecone provides $750 credits per participating group.   
In order to apply the credit to your account you need to:

* Open a Pinecone account (or use your existing account).
* Add a payment method (upgrade to standard). You still don't need to pay.
* Send us (the organizers) your Pinecone organization ID.
* We will work with Pinecone to apply the credits to your account.
* Now you can use your Pinecone account with the applied credits. Any usage beyond the credits would be paid by your payment method. 

## 3. Deployment Recommendations
To optimize cost and performance:

* Use Pinecone Serverless Deployment – This simplifies deployment and reduces overhead.
* Minimize Data Transfer Costs – Deploy Pinecone in the same AWS region as your workloads to reduce network bandwidth expenses.
  * Example: If your AWS instances are in us-east-1, deploy the Pinecone index in us-east-1 as well.