Question 1

Is Teradata Vantage offered as-a-service on AWS?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Teradata Vantage on AWS 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 Amazon Web Services so that customers can focus on answers, not IT. Consuming as-a-service enables users to get 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 maintained 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 AWS environments. A Service Level Agreement for 99.9% 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, 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 AWS features are comprehensive:

Flexible capacity pricing model with monthly, 1-year, and 3-year options
Subscription to world-famous Teradata Vantage software
High-performance AWS infrastructure managed by Teradata
- Secure, compliant environment audited for GDPR, PCI, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and SOC 1 and 2
Service availability guarantee for 99.9% 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

For a complete explanation of what comes with Vantage on AWS, refer to the Cloud Service Description.

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

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

Question 5

In whose AWS account is Vantage on AWS deployed?

Accepted Answer

By default, Vantage on AWS is deployed in a Teradata-owned AWS account dedicated to the customer. Teradata provisions and manages the AWS compute and storage resources as part of the complete as-a-service solution. By exception, Vantage can be deployed as an AWS Managed Application in a customer-owned AWS account as described in this document.

Question 6

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

Accepted Answer

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

Australia

Sydney (ap-southeast-2)

Bahrain

Bahrain (me-south-1)

Canada

Canada Central (ca-central-1)

France

Paris (eu-west-3)

Germany

Frankfurt (eu-central-1)

Hong Kong

Hong Kong (ap-east-1)

Ireland

Ireland (eu-west-1)

Japan

Tokyo (ap-northeast-1)

Korea

Seoul (ap-northeast-2)

Singapore

Singapore (ap-southeast-1)

Sweden

Stockholm (eu-north-1)

United Kingdom

London (eu-west-2)

United States

N. Virginia (us-east-1)
Ohio (us-east-2)
Oregon (us-west-2)

Vantage on AWS has Limited Availability from these Azure regions:

Brazil

Sao Paulo (sa-east-1)

India

Mumbai (ap-south-1)

Italy

Milan (eu-south-1)

South Africa

Cape Town (af-south-1)

United States

N. California (us-west-1)

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 flexible capacity pricing or pay only for what’s used with Consumption (pay-as-you-go) pricing.

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 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 AWS are as follows:

Compute and I/O can scale from 3 TCore to nearly 1,000 TCore.
Storage can grow from 10TB 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 AWS?

Accepted Answer

Compute and storage resources (EC2, EBS, S3) provisioned and managed by Teradata Cloud Operations
Connectivity via AWS Transit Gateway, AWS PrivateLink, AWS Direct Connect, 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 AWS 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 system 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 on AWS 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.

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 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 immediately with no downtime (e.g., using Elastic Performance on Demand, or EPOD), and other scaling operations require just a brief restart and no data redistribution.

For permanent system expansion, 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

Your as-a-service systems are backed up daily by default. The two most recent backup copies are replicated to a secondary storage environment, typically Amazon S3.

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 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.

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, and security of the as-a-service environment.

Question 28

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 29

During software maintenance, will my system be available?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 30

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 31

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 32

What is a TCore?

Accepted Answer

TCore is a metric used to price Teradata software. TCores are &ldquo;CPU cores potential based on I/O capacity&rdquo;. The TCore metric provides a transparent, consistent measurement of a system configuration that takes the number of cores available and discounts that by the I/O available to keep the cores busy. This calculation is effective and applicable across all Teradata deployment options, thereby giving a compatible measurement to allow license portability from one platform to another.

Question 33

What are TCore-Hours?

Accepted Answer

TCore-Hours is a metric that represents the availability of TCores on the underlying infrastructure, by the hour. TCore-Hours are calculated by multiplying the TCore ratings of instances running Teradata software by the operating hours clocked by those instances.

Question 34

What are the benefits of TCore-Hours?

Accepted Answer

TCore-Hours offer the flexibility to consume TCores only when the underlying infrastructure running Teradata software is provisioned. Many workloads are characterized by a combination of steady-state consumption coupled with spikes (for both high demand as well as low utilization). TCore-Hours offers the flexibility to scale a system up, down, out, and in to match those workload needs &ndash; as well as the ability to stop the system when not needed &ndash; based on requirements over time, and then only pay for the corresponding provisioned resources.

Question 35

When do I purchase TCore-Hours?

Accepted Answer

Customers purchase TCore-Hours when first subscribing to an as-a-service contract for Vantage on AWS. Teradata recommends using the TCore-Hours Calculator to estimate the number of TCore-Hours needed for system usage. Additional TCore-Hours can be purchased at any time before the expiration of a user’s as-a-service contract at the same price.

Question 36

How do I purchase TCore-Hours?

Accepted Answer

First estimate the number of TCore-Hours needed for a system by using the TCore-Hours Calculator, then enter that value in the TCore-Hours field in the as-a-service listing. The minimum block size is 50,000 TCore-Hours. Upon subscribing to an as-a-service contract, the purchase will be complete, and that quantity of TCore-Hours will be added to the user’s TCore-Hours Block.

Question 37

What is the validity of TCore-Hours?

Accepted Answer

TCore-Hours are valid for one (1) year.

Question 38

What are Baseline TCore-Hours?

Accepted Answer

Baseline TCore-Hours are the starting point for estimating how many TCore-Hours will be needed for Baseline configuration. They represent the starting system configuration and how many TCore-Hours that will be needed if instances are on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year.

Question 39

How do I start using TCore-Hours?

Accepted Answer

Once the as-a-service contract is created, TCore-Hours are added to the Block of TCore-Hours. Upon provisioning your system, TCore-Hours start getting consumed from the Block. Users can view and track Entitled, Used and Remaining TCore-Hours via the Console.

Question 40

What impact does elasticity have on TCore-Hours?

Accepted Answer

The Entitled TCore-Hours are drawn down from a user&rsquo;s Block of TCore-Hours based on how they use their system. For steady-state consumption, a system utilizes TCore-Hours at a specific rate over time (per day/month/week/year). When performing elasticity operations such as Scale Up and Scale Out, TCore-Hours are drawn down from a Block at a faster rate because of the additional compute resources being utilized. When Scaling Down or Scaling In, the TCore-Hours consumption rate is decreased due to a smaller amount of compute resources being used. Stopping a system halts TCore-Hours consumption for the duration of when the system is Stopped.

Question 41

Can I add extra TCore-Hours to my subscription/SaaS contract?

Accepted Answer

Yes, users can add TCore-Hours to the as-a-service contract any time before the contract expires.

Question 42

Will I get a refund if I stop using my system?

Accepted Answer

No. For more information, please see the End User License Agreement or contact the Teradata Account Team.

Question 43

What happens if I use up all my TCore-Hours?

Accepted Answer

If a Block of TCore-Hours is drawn down to zero, Teradata will suspend the relevant system for 30 days, after which that site will be deleted. During the time that the system is suspended, users can reinstate it by ordering more TCore-Hours. After that 30-day period, customers will have to order a new as-a-service system and reload the data.

Question 44

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 45

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 46

Where can I find documentation for the Console?

Accepted Answer

You can find information about the Console right in the Console itself. Just click the "i" icons.

Question 47

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 48

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 49

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

Accepted Answer

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

Question 50

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 51

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 52

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 53

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 54

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

Accepted Answer

Choose from several methods for connecting to a Vantage on AWS system. Teradata recommends AWS Transit Gateway, which enables users to access their as-a-service account privately and securely. Customers may also use AWS PrivateLink, AWS Direct Connect and Virtual Private Network (VPN).

Question 55

Do I need to perform any additional settings to connect via AWS PrivateLink?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Please follow the steps you see when you click the "i" icon on the PrivateLink widget in the Console. The steps need to be performed in the AWS Account via the AWS console.

Question 56

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

Accepted Answer

Yes. Included in the as-a-service subscription price is a 100Mbps 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 100Mbps site-to-site VPN, also included in the price is 1% (of system size) for data transfer out of the AWS region / VPC. Additional transfers incur additional costs (a pass-through of the AWS egress charges).

Question 57

Is 100Mbps over VPN enough for my data movement needs?

Accepted Answer

Whether or not a workload will need more bandwidth than 100Mbps depends on how much data is expected to be moving into or out of the 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 will need to use a dedicated private circuit as described above.

Question 58

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 is 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 59

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 system(s), Viewpoint server, and utilities server along with instructions on how to access each one. The 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 60

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

Accepted Answer

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 61

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

Accepted Answer

Portable storage devices from AWS 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.

Question 62

Where is documentation for Vantage on AWS?

Accepted Answer

Teradata provides easy-to-follow documentation for understanding, getting started, and using Vantage on AWS on the following pages:

Question 63

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 64

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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