Question 1

Is Teradata Vantage&trade; offered as-a-service for Azure?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Teradata Vantage™ on Azure is a managed cloud service for analytics at scale. It provides secure, scalable, single-tenant environments in which Teradata provisions and maintains the Vantage system in Microsoft Azure so that customer can focus on answers, not IT. Consuming as-a-service gets users going quickly while scaling as they evolve.

Question 2

What are the business benefits?

Accepted Answer

As-a-service consumption of Vantage was designed from the ground up to deliver business benefits in four critical areas:

Performance: Vantage is the most performant analytics software for always-on analytics in the cloud. No alternative comes close to its chart-topping throughput and response times.
Security: Security is the number one priority for Teradata when it comes to the as-a-service environments provisioned and maintain for customers. Teradata invests in third-party audits to demonstrate compliance with the GDPR, PCI, HIPAA, ISO 27001, ad SOC 1 and 2.
Availability: Teradata contractually guarantees the uptime of Vantage on Azure environments. A Teradata Service Level Agreement for up to 99% uptime translates into more productivity and higher satisfaction for business analysts and data scientists.
Operations: Teradata handles infrastructure-level tasks—software patches, version upgrades, daily backups, user administration, performance reporting, and support ticket resolution—so customers can focus on managing the business.

Question 3

What capabilities come with it?

Accepted Answer

Teradata Vantage on Azure features are comprehensive:

Flexible capacity pricing model with monthly, 1-year, and 3-year options
Subscription to world-famous Teradata Vantage software
High-performance Azure infrastructure managed by Teradata
- Secure, compliant environment audited for GDPR, PCI, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and SOC 1 and 2
Service availability guarantee for 99% uptime
Web console
Comprehensive infrastructure services:
- Onboarding assistance
- Provisioning assistance
- System monitoring
- System maintenance
- Patch management
- Software upgrades
- Encryption of data in motion and at rest
- Daily backups administered by Teradata

Question 4

What are the use cases?

Accepted Answer

Customers use Teradata as-a-service offers for Vantage for all the same use cases as other Teradata deployment options:

Production analytics
Test and development
Quality assurance
Cloud data labs
Disaster recovery

Visit the Customers section to read success stories and watch customer testimonials.

Question 5

In whose Azure subscription is Vantage on Azure deployed?

Accepted Answer

By default, Vantage on Azure is deployed in a Teradata-owned Azure subscription dedicated to the customer. Teradata provisions and manages the Azure compute and storage resources as part of the complete as-a-service solution.

Alternatively, for customers who require the service to be deployed within their own Azure subscription, Teradata uses Azure Managed Application. With this option, a customer provisions the necessary compute and storage resources and then hands control of just those resources to Teradata for ongoing monitoring and management. Because the Azure Managed Application option requires the customer to provision and pay for compute and storage rather than Teradata, the subscription price for Vantage on Azure is reduced by approximately 12.5% (Base), 8.5% (Advanced), or 7% (Enterprise). Contact your Teradata account team for details.

Question 6

Where is Vantage available as-a-service on Azure?

Accepted Answer

Vantage on Azure is available from many Azure regions across the globe:

Australia

Australia East (New South Wales)
Australia Southeast (Victoria)

Canada

Canada Central (Toronto)
Canada East (Quebec City)

France

France Central (Paris)

Ireland

North Europe (Ireland)

Netherlands

West Europe (Netherlands)

United Kingdom

UK South (London)
UK West (Cardiff)

United States

Central US (Iowa)
East US (Virginia)
East US 2 (Virginia)
North Central US (Illinois)
South Central US (Texas)
West US (California)
West US 2 (Washington)

Question 7

Why choose as-a-service for Vantage?

Accepted Answer

As-a-service delivery of Teradata Vantage offers the most performant and secure analytics platform in the cloud, enabling users to get going quickly and scale as they evolve. Because Teradata manages the environment and guarantees system availability, internal teams can save time, focus on delivering actionable insights, and get the most value from the organization’s investment. Plus, customers have the option to pay only for what they provision with a flexible capacity pricing model.

When contemplating alternatives for enterprise analytics in the cloud, it’s easy to become distracted by bold claims about cloud benefits yet lose sight of the original business requirement: getting answers from your data leading to better business outcomes. Teradata recommends selecting a portable solution that can support both current and future hybrid cloud needs and does not require internal teams to re-code, re-train, or re-orient the company’s entire analytic ecosystem.

Question 8

What is the performance and storage capacity?

Accepted Answer

Performance and storage limits for Vantage on Azure are as follows:

Compute and I/O can scale from 5 TCore to nearly 600 TCore.
Storage can grow from 12TB to over 4PB.

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.

Question 9

Why should I select Azure?

Accepted Answer

Esv3 family of Virtual Machines
VM and Premium network attached storage resources provisioned and managed by Teradata Cloud Operations
Connectivity via Azure ExpressRoute or VPN

Question 10

What Teradata software releases are supported?

Accepted Answer

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

Question 11

What is the minimum number of nodes in a system?

Accepted Answer

The minimum number of instances that can be specified in a single Vantage on Azure system is two.

Question 12

I need more nodes. How do I scale my system?

Accepted Answer

Easy. As-a-service systems are elastic in that they can be scaled up and down (adjusting size of compute instances) and/or scaled out and in (adjusting number of compute instances) depending on resource availability. The Console is the web-based interface for monitoring and adjusting flexible capacity.

Question 13

Data security is extremely important. How do you handle security?

Accepted Answer

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.

The 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.

Question 14

Has Teradata undergone any compliance audits to verify security?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Teradata invests 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.

Question 15

What authentication methods are available?

Accepted Answer

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 for users to change passwords as soon as they can access the system. 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.

Question 16

Does Teradata Cloud Operations have access to my data?

Accepted Answer

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

Question 17

Will my data ever be transferred to or backed up in another country?

Accepted Answer

No. Customer data is never transferred across country borders.

Question 18

Do as-a-service subscriptions come with an availability SLA?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Teradata will use commercially reasonable efforts to make Vantage for Azure systems generally available 7 x 24 x 365. Teradata targets a Service Level Agreement (SLA) (excluding planned downtime) of up to 99% measured monthly. Please consult the Cloud Service Description for more details.

Question 19

What availability techniques are utilized?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 20

Will I have access to my Teradata system during scaling?

Accepted Answer

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 users 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.

Question 21

How often are my data backed up?

Accepted Answer

As-a-service systems are backed up daily by default. The two most recent backup copies are replicated to a secondary storage environment, typically Azure Blob.

Question 22

Are backups automatically configured?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 23

What if I need my data restored? How is this process accomplished?

Accepted Answer

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

Question 24

Who are Teradata Cloud Operations and what do they do?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 25

Does the Teradata Cloud Operations team provide DBA services?

Accepted Answer

No. Database Administration 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.

Question 26

How do I monitor the performance of my Vantage system?

Accepted Answer

The Console is the web-based interface for monitoring and adjusting resource allocation for a system 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 users to:

View status of all as-a-service systems in one location
Monitor and manage your as-a-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 about the Console, consult the Console section in these FAQs.

Question 27

What does Teradata Cloud Operations monitor for me?

Accepted Answer

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

Question 28

What systems are provided during provisioning?

Accepted Answer

As-a-service 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.

Question 29

Who performs hardware/software maintenance on my as-a-service systems?

Accepted Answer

Complete support for hardware and software is provided by the Teradata Cloud Operations team, which will inform 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.

Question 30

During software maintenance, will my system be available?

Accepted Answer

As-a-service systems 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.

Question 31

Does Teradata Cloud Operations have visibility to my data or access to my backups?

Accepted Answer

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

Question 32

Will my data ever be transferred to or backed up in another country?

Accepted Answer

No. Customer data is never transferred across country borders.

Question 33

What is the Console?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 34

How do I get my Console credentials?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 35

Where can I find documentation for the Console?

Accepted Answer

Documentation for the Console is available here.

Question 36

How do I start using the Console?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 37

What features does the Console support?

Accepted Answer

Available features include:

Resource summary and configurations
Compute elasticity: Scale Up/Down and Out/In
Cost optimization: Stop/Start
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

Question 38

What user access management policies can I implement in the Console?

Accepted Answer

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

Question 39

Can I use ServiceNow instead of the Console to handle support tickets?

Accepted Answer

Yes, users may use both options 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.

Question 40

How can I contact support when I find a problem with my Teradata instance?

Accepted Answer

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

Question 41

What is the minimum time interval granularity for the data that the Console receives and aggregates?

Accepted Answer

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

Question 42

What does the Backup section of the Console show?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 43

What are the connectivity options for my cloud system(s)?

Accepted Answer

Choose from several methods for connecting to a Vantage on Azure system.

One VPN connection up to 650 Mbps is provided; additional VPN bandwidth options include 1 Gbps or 1.25 Gbps.

Azure ExpressRoute is also available with the following bandwidth options: 50-, 100-, 200-, or 500 Mbps -- or 1-, 5-, or 10 Gbps.

Question 44

Is 650 Mbps over VPN enough for my data movement needs?

Accepted Answer

Whether or not a workload will need more bandwidth than 650 Mbps depends on how much data users plan to move into or out of an as-a-service system. Follow this link for a simple calculator to help understand data transfer bandwidth needs.

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

Question 45

What is needed to set up a site-to-site VPN?

Accepted Answer

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 customers by the Teradata team upon order placement. Two global public IPs are required for routing return traffic on the site-to-site VPN.

Question 46

Can I set up a VPN connection between my on-premises corporate network and my Vantage on Azure system?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Included in the as-a-service subscription price is a 650 Mbps site-to-site VPN configuration via publicly-routable IP addresses. This method can be used to connect the as-a-service system and a corporate network using a VPN in which an on-premises firewall/router is used to terminate the IPsec site-to-site tunnel connection, which encrypts all data.

Along with the 650 Mbps site-to-site VPN, also included in the price is 1% (of system size) for data transfer out of the Azure region / VNet. Additional transfers incur additional costs (a pass-through of the Azure egress charges).

Question 47

Is VNet Peering available with as-a-service for Azure to connect/peer my applications running in one VNet with the as-a-service system running in a different VNet?

Accepted Answer

No. There is an Azure limitation on peering two VNets in subscriptions associated with different Active Directory tenants. In short, the limitation is that two VNets cannot be peered unless both VNets are in subscriptions associated to the same Active Directory tenant. Because applications will be running in a user’s Azure Subscriptions that will be associated with their own Active Directory tenants — and the Vantage system will be running in the Teradata Azure Subscription that is associated with the Teradata Active Directory tenant — the two cannot be peered.

In such scenarios, Azure recommends a VPN Gateway (VNet-to-VNet Connections) to peer two VNets. Please see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/virtual-network-peering-overview.

Question 48

What&rsquo;s the best way to access my as-a-service environment?

Accepted Answer

Upon provisioning an as-a-service Vantage system, instructions will be provided on how to access the environment. Users receive 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 the user’s Vantage system.

External IP addresses will be provided to access database systems directly from servers or desktops within an internal network, and 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

Question 49

Will I be provided a load server for loading my data?

Accepted Answer

Yes, a load server will be provisioned with an as-a-service environment.

Question 50

Will I be able to load custom scripts on the load server?

Accepted Answer

Yes.

Question 51

How do I load data into my as-a-service system?

Accepted Answer

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)

Question 52

What is the best way to load large files to my Vantage on Azure system?

Accepted Answer

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

Question 53

What are the as-a-service support hours?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 54

How do I request support on my as-a-service systems?

Accepted Answer

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.

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