vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
For more information, see [Upgrading to an HA VPN server](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-vpn-client-to-site-change-server-types&interface=api).







 8 March 2022 



 For all version dates 

Backup for VPC. Accounts that have been granted special approval to preview this feature can now create backup policies to automatically back up block storage volumes. Use the new [backup service APIs](https://cloud.ibm.com/apidocs/vpc-betalist-backup-policies) to create, list, and manage backup policies. Backup policies control which source volumes are selected for backup by [matching user tags](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-backup-service-aboutbackup-service-about-tags) in the volume with tags defined in the backup policy. For this beta release, a backup policy contains one [backup plan](https://cloud.ibm.com/apidocs/vpc-betacreate-backup-policy-plan) in which a deletion_trigger specifies the maximum number of days to keep each backup after creation. For more information, see [About Backup for VPC (Beta)](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-backup-service-about).







 14 December 2021 



 For all version dates 

Concurrent update protection. To prevent multiple clients from unknowingly overwriting each other's updates, select API methods support entity-tags and conditional requests.

This feature is now generally available. See the [VPC API change log](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-api-change-log22-march-2022).







 23 November 2021 



 For all version dates 

Customer-managed encryption for file shares.
[Checkmark icon](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs-content/v1/content/f02b9c9adcbb7328d95a45e105cec371d50f15eb/icons/checkmark-icon.svg) 







 Benefits of creating backups 

The IBM Cloud Backup for VPC offers you the following benefits.



* Prevent data loss - Protect your critical data by scheduling regular backups. Establish a data restoration plan to quickly restore your compromised volumes. Reduce technical and financial impacts from unplanned outages.
* Protect against small-scale failures - Restore from a bootable snapshot if a host failure or malicious attack occurs.
* Improve compliance - You can prevent issues that are related to compliance and regulatory requirements by ensuring that backups are in place and data can be restored easily.
* Save costs - A backup policy retention plan means that backups are regularly deleted, reducing costs by not storing more data than needed.
* Ease of management - IBM's backup service is easier to manage than a third-party backup service because it is fully integrated with your VPC resources.







 Backup policies and backup plans 

Backup policies consist of plans that define schedules for automatic backup creation and data retention. You can schedule backups on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

You can specify the retention period or the total number of backups before the oldest are deleted. The default retention period is 30 days. Alternatively, you can set the total number of backups to retain up to 750 per volume. When that number is exceeded, the oldest backups are deleted.

The interval for creating a backup and its retention period can be the same or they can be different.

Backups that are created by the backup plan inherit the parent volume resource group details. You can create up to four plans per backup policy and modify the backup schedule and retention policy anytime. Your four plans can have different frequencies. For example, one can be daily. Another one can be weekly, and so on. All plans apply to the volumes with tags that match the backup policy.
For more information, see [API documentation for snapshots](https://cloud.ibm.com/apidocs/vpccreate-snapshot). The process of quiescing your apps, retrieving the access token, and passing the token to API for creating the snapshots, can be scripted and passed to a cron job. You can create a schedule to delete the snapshots as well.





 Restoring Snapshots 

You can restore the volumes either boot or data volumes from the snapshots that were created earlier. Apart from using the snapshots as backups, you can also restore both boot and data volumes together. For more information on restoring snapshots, see [Restoring a volume from a snapshot](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-snapshots-vpc-restoresnapshots-vpc-restore).





 Limitations 

For the current limitations of snapshots in VPC cloud, see [Limitations](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-snapshots-vpc-aboutsnapshots-vpc-limitations).





 Additional resources 

For more information about snapshots, see [About Snapshots for VPC](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-snapshots-vpc-about)
* This is a nondisruptive migration.



VPC does not have support for snapshot, replication, and shared volume. You can manage these solutions through the native OS capabilities, tools, or third party of your choice.

For more information, see [Bare metal to bare metal or virtual server migration overview](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-infrastructure?topic=cloud-infrastructure-pv-migration-overview).

For a detailed step-by-step guide on moving your IBM Cloud classic bare metal servers to VPC, see [Bare metal to virtual server migration on a private network using RMM](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-infrastructure?topic=cloud-infrastructure-pv-migration-private-network).

For frequently asked questions and answers, see [FAQs for RackWare](https://cloud.ibm.com/cloud-infrastructure?topic=cloud-infrastructure-rackware-faqs)





 On-premises to VPC infrastructure migration 

You can use RMM solution to migrate your on-premises workloads to IBM Cloud VPC.

Zoom

![Topology](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs-content/v1/content/8aa0853d34cf2349f1d2db8e5c61e6422a580169/cloud-infrastructure/images/On-Prem-1.svg)

Figure 4. On-premises to VPC migration

This architecture diagram is applicable for bare metal to bare metal, bare metal to virtual server, and virtual server to virtual server scenarios.

For a detailed step-by-step guide, see [VMware VM on-premises to IBM Cloud VPC with RMM](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-infrastructure?topic=cloud-infrastructure-migrating-images-vmware-vpc).

For frequently asked questions and answers, see [FAQs for VMware (on-premises and classic) to VPC migration](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-infrastructure?topic=cloud-infrastructure-faqs-vmware).





 Cloud to VPC infrastructure migration
See [Changed operations](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-2022-03-29-migrationchanged-operations) for a complete list.





 Migrating use of security group associations 

As part of the [2021-02-23 release](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-api-change-log23-february-2021), security group target methods were made available, and the original methods specific to network interfaces were deprecated. API version 2022-03-29 removes support for those deprecated methods. As shown in the [examples](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-2022-03-29-migrationexamples), the security group target methods include the capabilities of the deprecated methods. Security group targets also allow security groups to be associated with other VPC resources, such as endpoint gateways and load balancers.

The deprecated GET and PUT methods returned NetworkInterface response schemas, but the new GET and PUT methods return NetworkInterfaceReference response schemas. If your client was accessing properties beyond the properties in NetworkInterfaceReference, your client needs to call GET /instances/{instance_id}/network_interfaces/{id} to retrieve those properties separately.

Additionally, if your client was previously accessing the network_interfaces[] property that is returned by GET /security_groups, it needs to access the targets[] property instead. If your client was accessing properties in network_interfaces[] beyond the properties in NetworkInterfaceReference, your client needs to call GET /instances/{instance_id}/network_interfaces/{id} to retrieve those properties separately.







 Examples 

These examples compare differences between before and after the 2022-03-29 versioned change.



 IP address examples 

The following examples compare how to make a POST /instances call to provision an instance with a specific IP address on its primary network interface before and after the 2022-03-29 versioned change, and how to retrieve that IP address.

Specifying API version 2022-03-28 or earlier:
Billing Think about the number of backup snapshots that you want to take and other [billing considerations](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-snapshots-vpc-about&interface=apisnapshots_vpc_considerations) as the number of backup snapshots grows. 
 Volume restore Evaluate when you might want to restore a volume from a backup. Keep in mind that restoring from a backup is a manual operation and not immediate such as a disaster recovery solution. 
 Fast-restore You can create and cache a copy of the backup snapshot in one or more zones of the region where your volume resides. Fast-restore can be used in disaster recovery scenarios when you need to restore volumes in a different zone of the same region. The fast restore feature can achieve a<br><br>recovery time objective<br><br>(RTO) quicker than restoring from a regular snapshot. Evaluate when to enable snapshots for [fast restore](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-snapshots-vpc-restoresnapshots-vpc-use-fast-restore). 
 Cross-regional copy <br><br>New You can create and store a copy of the backup snapshot in another region, and use it to create volumes in the target region. This feature can be used in disaster recovery scenarios when you need to start your virtual server instance and data volumes in a different region. Think about whether you need to restore data in other regions. 
 Naming Make sure you have a unique name for your backup policy. For example, if you have a method for naming volumes, you might name a backup policy by using a similar convention. Naming conventions for backups that are created by the plan are the same as snapshots. For more information, see [Naming snapshots](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-snapshots-vpc-managesnapshots-vpc-naming). 
 Creating backups: 
 Prerequisites Verify that the volume is attached to a virtual server instance and that the instance is in a running state.
The snapshot contains the properties of the original source volume, including the auto-delete status, tags, size, profile, and encryption. You can change all these properties. Keep in mind that you can change the volume name, profile, size, and IOPS later, but you cannot change encryption type or CRK after the volume is created.
3. Select a unique name, specify the size, and click Create. The data volume information is added in the Data volume list.



5. Review your selections for volumes, instance profile, SSH keys, networking, and so on.
6. If you are satisfied with your choices, click Create virtual server instance. The new instance is created with the volumes that you specified. The new instance appears in the list of virtual server instances.
7. To see the instance details, click the instance name. The volume or volumes that you restored from snapshots are listed under Storage volumes. The camera icon indicates that the volume was created from a snapshot.







 Creating a data volume from a snapshot for an existing virtual server instance with the UI 

You can also create a data volume from a snapshot for an existing instance. Choose from the list of virtual server instances.



1. In the [IBM Cloud console)](https://cloud.ibm.com/login), click the menu ![menu icon](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs-content/v1/content/f02b9c9adcbb7328d95a45e105cec371d50f15eb/icons/icon_hamburger.svg) > VPC Infrastructure > Compute > Virtual server instances.
2. From the list, click the name of an instance. The instance must be in a running state.
3. On the Instance details page, scroll to the list of Storage volumes and click Attach volumes. A side panel opens for you to define the volume attachment.
4. From the Attach storage volume panel, expand the list of Block Volumes, and select Create a data volume.
5. Select Import from snapshot. Expand the Snapshot list and select a snapshot.
It's also recommended that you take a snapshot of the data volume so that you can revert to it in case you face any issues in the future.

Starting from the HPCR image version ibm-hyper-protect-container-runtime-1-0-s390x-9, for new Hyper Protect Virtual Servers for VPC instances, the data volume is partitioned into two parts. The first partition (100Mib) is reserved for internal metadata; the second partition remains as the data volume for workload. Only new volumes are partitioned, and you can't use the partitioned volume with an older version of the HPCR image. Provisioning with an existing encrypted volume also works. The difference is that the existing volume does not get partitioned, and you can also go back to an older image with this volume.

When you create a Hyper Protect Virtual Servers for VPC instance, detaching the data volume attached to the running instance causes the workload running on the instance to fail. It's recommended that you do not detach the data volume.
* Security group for ports

The ports that are associated with the container or workload must be explicitly opened up through security groups for them to be accessible. Therefore, you must create a security group based on the ports that are associated with the container and attach it to the corresponding VPC that's used with the Hyper Protect Virtual Servers for VPC instance.







 Creating a Hyper Protect Virtual Servers for VPC instance 

After you finish planning and have the contract ready, you can create a Hyper Protect Virtual Servers for VPC instance.



* [Creating an instance by using the UI](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-creating-virtual-servers&interface=ui). On the [provisioning page](https://cloud.ibm.com/vpc-ext/provision/vs?architecture=s390x&secureExecution=true), make sure that you select IBM Z, LinuxONE for Architecture, and turn on the Run your workload with an OS and a profile protected by Secure Execution toggle under Confidential computing.
Restoring a volume from a snapshot creates an entirely new boot or data volume. The new volume has the same properties of the original volume, including encryption. If you restore from a bootable snapshot, you create a boot volume. Similarly, you can create a data volume from a snapshot of a data volume. The volume that you create from the snapshot uses the same volume profile and contains the same data and metadata as the original volume. You can restore a volume when you provision an instance, update an existing instance, or create a stand-alone volume by using the UI, CLI, or the volumes API. For more information, see [Restoring a volume from a snapshot](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-snapshots-vpc-restore).

For best performance, you can enable snapshots for fast restore. By using the fast restore feature, you can create a volume from a snapshot that is fully provisioned when the volume is created. For more information, see [Snapshots fast restore](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-snapshots-vpc-aboutsnapshots_vpc_fast_restore).



 I restored a Block Storage for VPC volume from a snapshot, and it's not performing at the expected levels. Is this normal? 

Performance of boot and data volumes is initially degraded when data is restored from a snapshot. Performance degradation occurs during the restoration because your data is copied from IBM Cloud® Object Storage to Block Storage for VPC in the background. After the restoration process is complete, you can realize full IOPS on the new volume.

Volumes that are restored from fast restore clones do not require hydration. The data is available as soon as the volume is created.







 What happens to snapshots when I delete my volume? 

Deleting a volume from which you created a snapshot has no effect on the snapshot. Snapshots exist independently of the original source volume and have their own lifecycle. To delete a volume, all snapshots must be in a stable state.





 Can I set up a snapshot schedule?
: You can now use [Hyper Protect Secure Build](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-about-hpsb) to securely build an Open Container Initiative (OCI) image in [Hyper Protect Virtual Servers for VPC](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-about-se). You can push the image to DockerHub or IBM Cloud Container Registry (ICR). Later, you can pull the image from the registry to provision it in another Hyper Protect Virtual Servers for VPC instance. You can also pull SLES BaseContainerImages (BCI) from the SUSE registry, and use the images to provision Hyper Protect Virtual Servers for VPC instances.





 9 February 2023 

Export custom images (Beta)
: For accounts that are authorized to preview this feature, you can now export custom images to IBM Cloud Object Storage. For more information, see [Exporting a custom image to IBM Cloud Object Storage (Beta)](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-managing-custom-images&interface=uicustom-image-export-to-cos).





 7 February 2023 

Block storage fast restore snapshots
: You can now restore a fully provisioned volume with all its data from a snapshot by using a fast restore snapshot clone. You can use fast restor to restore a volume more quickly than restoring from a regular snapshot. To create the clone, you specify a zone or zones in the same region as the source snapshot. The clone is used to automatically restore a volume with all of its data in the zone where the clone exists. For more information, see [Restoring a volume by using fast restore](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-snapshots-vpc-restore&interface=apisnapshots-vpc-use-fast-restore).

Extra security for VPC snapshots (closed beta)
: For customers with special access to this security beta feature, data isolation is provided to store snapshots created from your dedicated hosts.
The data is available as soon as the volume is created.



* I restored a Block Storage for VPC volume from a snapshot, and it's not performing at the expected levels. Is this normal?

 I restored a Block Storage for VPC volume from a snapshot, and it's not performing at the expected levels. Is this normal? 

Performance of boot and data volumes is initially degraded when data is restored from a snapshot. Performance degradation occurs during the restoration because your data is copied from IBM Cloud® Object Storage to Block Storage for VPC in the background. After the restoration process is complete, you can realize full IOPS on the new volume.

Volumes that are restored from fast restore clones do not require hydration. The data is available as soon as the volume is created.
* What happens to snapshots when I delete my volume?

Deleting a volume from which you created a snapshot has no effect on the snapshot. Snapshots exist independently of the original source volume and have their own lifecycle. To delete a volume, all snapshots must be in a stable state.
* Can I set up a snapshot schedule?

Yes, you can use Backup for VPC to create a backup policy and plan. In the plan you can schedule daily, weekly, or monthly backup snapshots, or more frequent backups with a cron-spec expression. For more information about scheduling backup snapshots and how it works, see the [Backup for VPC](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-backup-service-about) overview.
* Can I detach or delete a volume after I take a snapshot?

Snapshots have their own lifecycle, independent of the Block Storage for VPC volume. You can separately manage the source volume. However, when you take a snapshot, you must wait for the snapshot creation process to complete before you detach or delete the volume.
* How am I charged for usage?

Cost for snapshots is calculated based on GB capacity that is stored per month, unless the duration is less than one month.
For more information, see [IBM Wazi as a Service product page](https://www.ibm.com/cloud/wazi-as-a-service).

File storage for VPC
: You can now access a customer root key (CRK) from one account, and then use that key to encrypt file shares you create in another account. When you create the file share, you specify the CRN of a root key from the account that contains the key. For more information, see [Cross-account encryption for multitenant file storage resources](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-vpc-byok-cross-acct-key-file).





 24 June 2022 

New stock image for bare metal servers
: Ubuntu (20.04 and 18.04) is now supported as an image when you provision a bare metal server.





 21 June 2022 

Backup for VPC (GA)
: You can now create automated backup snapshots of your block storage volumes. If your original volume is compromised, you can restore it from a backup snapshot. You create a backup policy to control which source volumes are selected for backup by matching user tags in the volume with tags that are defined in the policy. Each policy contains up to four backup plans, which define how often backup snapshots are taken (daily, weekly, monthly, or more frequently by using a cron-spec) and retained (by date or by count). You can also view backup jobs, which show status of backup snapshots that are being created or deleted. For more information about this service, see [Backup for VPC](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-backup-service-about).

The backup policy jobs API remains in [beta](https://cloud.ibm.com/apidocs/vpc-beta24-may-2022).





 10 June 2022 

Block Storage for VPC
: You can use the volumes API to restore an unattached data volume from a snapshot. Restoring from a snapshot creates a new, fully provisioned volume.
Users are not authorized to attach and detach service tags on a resource, even if they have access to manage tags on the resource. Service tags are helpful to distinguish which snapshots were created manually or automatically by a backup policy.

If a volume has multiple tags, only one tag needs to match a backup policy tag. Based on the schedule in the backup plan, a matching tag triggers a backup. If multiple volume tags match backup policy tags, only one backup is created at the scheduled interval. If you have multiple volumes with the same tag, backups are created for all the volumes.

IBM Cloud® does not limit the number of tags that you can specify for your resources. However, keeping the number low can make it easier to track the number of backups that you're creating. For more information, see [Applying backup policies to resources with tags](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-backup-use-policies).





 Restoring a volume from a backup 

You can create a separate volume from a backup snapshot. This process is called restoring a volume. It works the same way as restoring data from manually created snapshots. Restoring a volume from a backup snapshot creates a fully provisioned Block Storage for VPC boot or data volume.

A volume can be restored when you create an instance, modify an instance, or when you create a stand-alone volume (no instance provisioning is required). Volume data restoration begins immediately as the volume is hydrated, but [performance is degraded](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-baas-vpc-restore&interface=uibaas-performance-considerations) until the volume is fully restored. Restoring from a bootable snapshot is slower than using a regular boot volume.

While the creation of the backup requires the volumes to be attached to a running virtual server instance, you can also restore a data volume from a snapshot of an unattached volume. Backups, like snapshots, have a lifecycle that is independent from the source Block Storage for VPC volume.

The restored volume has the same capacity and IOPS tier profile as the original volume.