Teradata Cloud FAQs

Performance and storage limits for Vantage delivered as-a-service:

• Compute and I/O can scale from 26 TCore to just about anything that is needed.
• Storage can scale from 26 TB to just about anything that is needed.

Fallback and compression are enabled by default for all user tables. Actual compression rates will vary depending on data demographics — however rates of 3X or higher are common.

• Dedicated, purpose-built Teradata hardware provisioned and managed by Teradata Cloud Operations
• Independent scaling of compute and storage; high availability with hot standby node capability
• Low-latency connectivity with applications and other infrastructure co-located in the same data center

All new as-a-service subscriptions support Teradata Vantage.

The minimum amount of TCore that can be specified in a single as-a-service system is 26.

Easy. As-a-service systems are elastic in that they can be scaled up and down (adjusting TCore) depending on resource availability. The Console is the web-based interface for monitoring and adjusting flexible system capacity.

Security is the number one priority when it comes to the as-a-service environments that Teradata provisions and maintains for customers. Teradata delivers across-the-board support for every facet of cloud security including physical security, network security, data protection, monitoring, and access controls.

Teradata service architecture was designed to comply with – and is successfully audited annually for – strict international standards including:

• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) 
• International Standards Organization (ISO) 27001
• Payment Card Industry (PCI)
• Service Organization Control (SOC) 1 and 2

The Information Security Management System gets annual third-party verification to ensure compliance with standards. These audit reports and the latest certifications are available upon request.

Yes. Teradata has invested in rigorous third-party audits of our as-a-service offerings to demonstrate compliance with industry security regulations and industry best practices such as GDPR, PCI, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and SOC 1 and 2.

Please visit the Cloud Security page for more information. Read the press release on 3rd party audits for security and compliance.

As-a-service systems are LDAP ready. By default, systems will use a native database authentication method.

In Teradata Vantage, users DBC (superuser), SYSDBA (database management), and SECADM (security administration) are provided with TD2 authentication and default passwords. It is important to change passwords for these users as soon access is granted. User SYSBACK is created on all Teradata systems and its password is secured by Cloud Operations. The SYSBACK user’s password should not be changed because it is used to execute daily backup operations on the system.

No. The Teradata Cloud Operations team does not have visibility or access to customer data.

No. Customer data is never transferred across country borders.

Yes. Teradata will use commercially reasonable efforts to make Vantage on Teradata Cloud systems generally available 7 x 24 x 365. Teradata targets a Service Level Agreement (SLA) (excluding planned downtime) of 99.9% measured monthly. Please consult the Cloud Service Description for more details.

Teradata Vantage is configured to use Fallback protection on all tables. Fallback provides a layer of protection that extends beyond just a loss of redundant hardware. With Fallback, a secondary copy of data exists on a different node. The system will go through a restart and continue to function with a reduction in performance. Once the failed infrastructure is replaced or restored, Vantage will rebuild using the Fallback data copies.

Some scaling operations may be accomplished with just a restart, which is a brief period. For other during scaling operations, Teradata systems are available for read-only operations during which you cannot load or change data but can continue to run queries and reports. When the new resources are ready, there will be a few minutes of scheduled downtime to transition from the former to new resources.

As-a-service systems are backed up daily by default. The two most recent backup copies are replicated to a secondary storage environment, typically in the other U.S. data center.

Yes. The “sysback” user in Vantage is used to perform backups. To change passwords for the “sysback” account, users must coordinate with Teradata Cloud Operations via a change management ticket in the Console to ensure uninterrupted backups.

Simply place a request for restore (either at table, database, or full system level) via the Console.

The Cloud Operations team performs activities such as:

• Onboarding assistance
• Provisioning assistance
• System monitoring
• System maintenance
• Patch management
• Software upgrades

Cloud Operations continually monitors and administers the as-a-service environments to help ensure security, availability, backups, and data recovery.

No. Database Administrator services are typically the responsibility of the customer, but, customers are welcome to engage with Teradata Services to perform DBA and other value-add activities.

The Console is the web-based interface for monitoring and adjusting resource allocation for systems at the account level. Teradata Viewpoint is the primary operational view for monitoring and managing cloud systems. This instance of Viewpoint can only monitor as-a-service based systems.

The Console enables you to:

• View status of all as-a-service systems in one location
• Monitor and manage as-as-service resources
• See database site metrics such as compute and storage utilization
• Open and monitor support tickets
• Add or delete user accounts

To learn more, consult the Console section in these FAQs.

Cloud Operations monitors platform availability, backups, and security of the as-a-service environment. 

Vantage on Teradata Cloud customers get three (3) servers along with the Teradata-provisioned infrastructure:

• A load server running Teradata load utilities
• Preconfigured Viewpoint server for management of database resources including predefined views:
  • Dashboard with a high-level view of as-a-service systems
  • Current activity for monitoring active sessions
  • Capacity view for managing space and resource utilization trends over time
• ​Utility server (via remote desktop access) which is preconfigured with Teradata client tools for data access, database management, and load/unload functions.

Complete support for hardware and software is provided by the Teradata Cloud Operations team, which informs customers when updates to Teradata software or operating systems are recommended. Cloud Operations will coordinate incidents and change control with users (for implementation of software updates) as required. Note: testing of software updates is the customer’s responsibility.

As-a-service system(s) will not be available when software maintenance is performed on systems during a planned maintenance window. Customers will receive ample notice prior to such planned maintenance taking place.

No. The Cloud Operations team does not have visibility or access to customer data or backups.

No. Customer data is never transferred across country borders.

The Console is an easy-to-use web interface for monitoring and managing as-a-service systems. There is no additional charge for the Console and all as-a-service deployment types and regions are supported.

Console credentials will be sent to users via email once an as-a-service account is created. Upon receiving and changing credentials per the instructions in the email, users can log in to the Console using a Chrome web browser.

Documentation for the Console is available here.

Existing as-a-service customers can use their Teradata Support credentials to log in to the management web console via Chrome. New customers are provided with credentials once their systems have been set up and are ready to use.

Available features include:

• Resource summary and configurations
• Compute elasticity: Scale TCore
• Storage expansion
• Disk and CPU utilization
• Usage metering
• Availability reporting
• Event notifications
• IP info: CIDR, Vantage, Viewpoint
• Backup history and management
• Backup storage metering
• Support ticket management
• User management

Service owners and access managers are able to assign users to specific roles with limited access.

Yes, both options can be used to open/update/monitor support tickets. The Console provides a more filtered, simpler view of tickets; for detailed views, click on a ticket to open it in ServiceNow.

Customers can leverage existing Teradata Support channels or open a new request using the Support ticketing section of the Console.

Most system and database metrics are received and aggregated in 5-minute intervals.

The Backup section displays all registered backup jobs as well as the ability to edit the parameters of the backups. The most recent backup event logs are also available from this view. Backups can have weekly reports sent every Wednesday to the email assigned to the Technical Contact role registered in ServiceNow; submit a new service ticket to opt in to this weekly backup report.

One site-to-site VPN up to 100Mbps is provided for connecting a network and the Teradata data center which leverages publicly routable IP addresses. Additional options include:

• More site-to-site VPN connections
• Bandwidth up to 10Gbps
• Dedicated network edge router hosting 
• 1 or 10Gbps dedicated network connectivity
• 1 or 10Gbps data center cross-connect

Whether or not your workload will need more bandwidth than 100Mbps depends on how much data you plan on moving into or out of your as-a-service system. Follow this link for a simple calculator to help understand data transfer bandwidth needs better.

Please also note that while site-to-site VPN connections over the Internet are secure, actual bandwidth will vary. For guaranteed bandwidth, users need to use a dedicated private circuit as described above.

A Teradata site-to-site VPN form must be submitted to Teradata Cloud Operations before a VPN tunnel can be established. This form will be given to users by Teradata team upon order placement. Two global public IPs are required for routing return traffic on the site-to-site VPN.

Upon provisioning an as-a-service Vantage system, instructions will be provided on how to access the environment. Users get a list of IP addresses to their database systems, load server (if applicable), Viewpoint server, and utilities server along with instructions on how to access each one. The load, Viewpoint, and utility servers will be preconfigured to access database system(s) from within a user’s Vantage system.

External IP addresses will be provided to access database systems directly from servers or desktops within a user’s own network, and users can download Teradata Tools & Utilities.

Database access to Teradata is available through any of the following drivers and utilities:

• ODBC, JDBC, OLE DB Drivers
• Net Data Provider
• Teradata CLIv2
• Teradata Plug-in for Eclipse
• BTEQ – command line query tool
• Teradata Studio – Eclipse-based database query tool

Yes, a 100 GB load server will be provisioned with your Vantage on Teradata Cloud environment.

If users expect to have large load volumes on a regular basis, Teradata Cloud Operations can optionally provision an “Enhanced Load Server” which is configured with 1TB of storage space. Teradata Tools and Utilities are included with both load servers.

Yes.

As-a-service load servers support SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) to move data files into the cloud. All necessary load/unload utilities are provided on the load server. Data loads are accomplished in the following ways:

• Teradata Parallel Transporter – (recommended)
  • Load Operator to insert data into empty tables (fastest)
  • Update Operator to insert/update data into populated tables
  • Stream Operator to insert data into tables concurrently (enhanced option)
  • Inserter Operator to insert BLOB data

• Legacy stand-alone tools – (for support of legacy scripts)
  • FastLoad
  • FastExport
  • MultiLoad
  • TPump (enhanced option)

Portable storage devices from Teradata can be used to transfer large amounts of data into an as-a-service environment. Please review the Cloud Import/Export document available from the Cloud Service Desk for further details. Teradata Parallel Transporter can load data files in delimited or fixed width formats.

Customers with an existing Teradata system can use ARC (ARCMAIN utility) to create a copy of data to load into the external device by using an ARCHIVE command for each source database. The external device is then encrypted and sent to the Teradata Data Center where it is mounted. Users can then load the data from the drive to the Teradata environment. Requests for receiving and mounting the drive can be made through the Cloud Support Portal.

Another option is “Teradata Direct Connect” for initiating a connection from your data center to the Teradata Cloud environment. Optional 1Gbps or 10Gbps connection ports are available for data transfer.

Teradata provides Cloud Service Desk services 7 x 24 x 365 at 1-877-MY-TDATA (1-877-698-3282).

The Console and the Teradata Cloud Service Portal are also available 7 x 24 x 365 for the submission of incidents, changes, and requests for information.

Business Day: Monday-Friday 9:00 AM EST-8:00 PM EST.  

Next Business Day: Example: If a S2 or S3 incident is opened in the Teradata Cloud Service Portal after 8:00 PM EST on Friday, Teradata Staff will respond to this incident on Monday at 9:00 AM EST. 

Up to five (5) customer users will be provided with access to the Console and Teradata Cloud Service Portal for submitting requests for information and tracking incidents and changes.