vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
[Creating a custom image from volume and provisioning an instance in the UI](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-creating-and-using-an-image-from-volume)Creating a custom image from volume and provisioning an instance in the UI

This tutorial demonstrates how to create a custom image from the boot volume of a virtual server instance, and then use that image to create a new instance.

Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)



* 15 minutes
* 2023-04-26



[Assigning separate user access to dedicated hosts and dedicated groups](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-user-access-to-dedicated-hosts-and-groups)Assigning separate user access to dedicated hosts and dedicated groups

This tutorial demonstrates how to use resource groups and access groups to give users access to resources on dedicated hosts without allowing them to see or interact with these hosts directly.

Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)



* 30 minutes
* 2023-06-22



[Setting up a VPN client](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-setting-up-vpn-client)Setting up a VPN client

In this tutorial, you learn how to set up your VPN client and connect to the VPN server.

Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)



* 20 minutes
* 2022-07-07



Platform[Setting up your IBM Cloud account](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/account?topic=account-account-getting-started)Setting up your IBM Cloud account

This tutorial walks you through the steps for setting up an account in IBM Cloud®. By completing this tutorial, you learn how to set up account authentication, manage your account settings, effectively organize resources in your account, and control access to resources.

Managing your account, resources, and access



* 60 minutes
* 2023-05-17
For more information about creating dedicated hosts and groups, see [Creating dedicated hosts and groups](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-creating-dedicated-hosts-instances).

For more information about importing your BYOL custom image to the VPC, see [Importing and validating custom images into VPC](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-importing-custom-images-vpc&interface=ui).

For the UI procedure for creating a new instance and specifying a BYOL custom image, see [Creating virtual server instances](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-creating-virtual-servers).
Planning considerations for VPN servers 

Review the following considerations before creating a client-to-site VPN server.



 Scaling considerations 

The aggregation bandwidth is 600 Mbps for a stand-alone VPN and 1200 Mbps for a high availability VPN server. The maximum number of active clients is 2000. If you require more bandwidth, or have more clients that need to connect with the VPN server, you can create multiple VPN servers in the same VPC, or in different VPCs in different regions.





 Existing VPC configuration considerations 

Decide if you need to access service endpoints and IaaS endpoints from your client. These endpoints securely connect to IBM Cloud services over the IBM Cloud private network. If you need to access these endpoints, you must specify the DNS server addresses 161.26.0.10 and 161.26.0.11 when you provision the VPN server. See [Service endpoints](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-service-endpoints-for-vpccloud-service-endpoints) and [IaaS endpoints](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-service-endpoints-for-vpcinfrastructure-as-a-service-iaas-endpoints) for details.

You must also decide whether you need to resolve private DNS names from your client. IBM Cloud DNS Services provides private DNS to VPC users. If you need to access these endpoints, you must specify the DNS server addresses 161.26.0.7 and 161.26.0.8 when you provision the VPN server. See [About DNS Services](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/dns-svcs?topic=dns-svcs-about-dns-services) for details.

When you specify this DNS server, you must also create a VPN route after the VPN server is provisioned, with destination 161.26.0.0/16 and the translate action.





 VPN server provisioning considerations 

Consider the following when provisioning a VPN server.



 Client IPv4 address pool
* Public bandwidth usage over GB allocation is charged per GB.



* What IMS permissions do I need to view and change bandwidth allocations (or add and remove devices to and from bandwidth pools)?

The BANDWIDTH_MANAGE IMS infrastructure classic permission is the only required permission for bandwidth metering. After you allow this permission, you can complete the following actions:



* Create a bandwidth pool
* Move a device into or out of a pool
* Void a device’s move into a pool
* Cancel a pool



Certain actions pertaining to bandwidth pools, including visibility, might be constrained based on device-level permission. Reconcile your device-level permissions on specific devices to manage their bandwidth and membership in pools.
* Why don't I see the same number of devices as displayed on the devices count?

This issue might be due to permission restrictions because some users do not have permission to view specific devices. This issue might also be the result of devices that were reclaimed in the middle of the billing cycle, but are still contributing to the cost of the pool.
* What kind of devices generate bandwidth?

Compute devices use bandwidth. For example, devices that generate bandwidth include bare metal servers, virtual servers, firewalls (FSA 10G), and Netscaler devices.
* Why doesn't the allocation display the same value that I ordered?

The allocation that is shown is related to the proration policy. For example, imagine that you order 20 TB of bandwidth on the 15th of the month. The allocation that is shown on the bandwidth summary page will show 10 TB until the next billing cycle. Then, the allocation displays the full amount of what was ordered.
* What is the maximum number of devices that I can attach to a bandwidth pool?

You can attach an unlimited number of devices to a bandwidth pool.
* Is there a charge for traffic on the Classic Private Network?

There is no charge for traffic between Virtual Servers for Classic or Bare Metal Servers for Classic, on the Classic Private network, within the same Classic account.



Citrix Netscaler VPX



* What is Citrix Netscaler VPX?

Citrix NetScaler is an application delivery controller that makes applications five times better by accelerating performance, ensuring application availability and protection and substantially lowering operational costs.
For example, a single zone reserved virtual data center is created with 100 vCPU and 800 GB RAM. Later in the month, the data center is reduced to 50 vCPU and 400 GB RAM. The monthly peak usage is 100 vCPU and 800 GB RAM.





 Hourly peak metric usage 

The maximum value of the metric used over an hour. For example, if 100 vCPU is used for a minute of the hour with 0 vCPU used for the other 59 mins, the hourly peak metric usage is 100 vCPU.







 VMware Shared on-demand billing plan 

VMware Shared on-demand virtual data center resources are allocated as needed. Pricing is hourly based on the resource usage in the virtual data center. The following metrics are part of this plan.

The standard storage policy pricing is the same as the 4-IOPS/GB storage policy. The number of IOPS/GB for the standard storage policy is not guaranteed.

Storage policy availability can vary by region and deployment topology. On the VMware Shared order page, select the About tab to view available storage policy offerings.

General metrics

Storage metrics

Operating system metrics



Table 2. VMware Shared Solutions On-demand billing plan - General metrics

 Metric Frequency Description 

 MAX_BASE_COST Monthly Virtual data center price, which includes the edge gateway with five IP addresses. 
 TOTAL_VCPU_HOURS Hourly The peak vCPU usage over the period of an hour. 
 TOTAL_RAM_GB_HOURS Hourly The peak memory usage over the period of an hour. 
 TOTAL_EGRESS_GB Usage The total outbound public traffic is charged per GB transferred over the period of an hour. This value includes public outbound traffic. 







 VMware Shared Solutions Reserved billing plan 

VMware Shared Solutions Reserved virtual data center resources are preallocated and guaranteed. Pricing is monthly based on the allocation size of the virtual data center.

The standard storage policy pricing is the same as the 4-IOPS/GB storage policy. The number of IOPS/GB for the standard storage policy is not guaranteed.

Storage policy availability can vary by region and deployment topology.
Hourly only hosts allow only hourly instances to be provisioned; monthly only hosts allow provisioning of monthly and hourly instances. Pricing for dedicated hosts includes core, RAM, local SSD storage, and network port speeds. Premium operating systems, storage area network (SAN) storage, and software add-on prices and licensing are charged based on the instance deployed—hourly or monthly—on the dedicated host. The same pricing model as IBM Cloud public and dedicated instances is followed for these items.





 I’m running an on-demand dedicated host; how am I billed? 

You are billed at the hourly or monthly on-demand rate for dedicated hosts. Dedicated host instances that are provisioned on dedicated hosts might incur instances charges as noted in the answer to [How is a dedicated host offering billed](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/virtual-servers?topic=virtual-servers-faqs-dedicated-hosts-and-instanceshow-is-the-dedicated-host-offering-billed-).





 How is tenancy specified when you provision dedicated hosts and dedicated host instances? 

The default tenancy for dedicated instances is single tenant. You can provision dedicated instances on either a dedicated host (dedicated host instances) or an auto-assigned host (dedicated instances). Dedicated instances on auto-assigned hosts do not offer the same management level as those hosts that are on a dedicated host.





 Can I mix and match different dedicated host instance configurations on my dedicated host? 

Yes. You can provision different virtual server sizes on dedicated hosts within its capacity allotments.





 How do I know how many dedicated host instances I can run on each dedicated host? 

Each dedicated host has a specific allotment of core, RAM, and local SSD storage. You are able to view resource allocations on the host Allocations tab to know how many dedicated host instances are provisioned, current host capacity that is used, and what is available.





 What images can be provisioned on dedicated hosts? 

You can provision IBM Cloud virtual server stock images or import your own images as indicated in the third-party agreement.





 Is there a limit as to how many dedicated hosts can be allocated to a single account? 

Yes, resource limitations are per account as defined for all IBM Cloud as a Service resources.
The pricing rates are same for North America and Europe, similarly for South America and Asia Pacific. See [One Rate pricing plan details](https://cloud.ibm.com/objectstorage/createpricing).
* Are all Cloud Object Storage features available in the One-Rate Plan?

All Cloud Object Storage features (Versioning, Archive, Replication, WORM, Expiration, etc.) are available in the One-Rate Plan.
* Is the One-Rate plan available in all Cloud Object Storage regions?

The One-Rate plan is available in all Cloud Object Storage Regional and Single sites.
* Can I configure a lifecycle policy to archive or expire my objects in the One Rate Active buckets?

Yes, you can set a lifecycle policy to archive objects from the One Rate Active buckets to either Archive (restore ≤ 12 hours) or Accelerated Archive (restore ≤ 2 hours). Similarly, you can set expiration rules to expire objects based on the date of creation of the object, or a specific date.
* What pricing rates will apply to objects archived from the One Rate Active buckets?

For Archive and Accelerated Archive, standard pricing applies based on the bucket location. For example, a bucket created in us-south will incur archive pricing for us-south. Similarly, a bucket in ca-tor will incur archive pricing for ca-tor.
* Can I move my existing buckets from Standard plan to One-Rate plan?

Existing buckets in the Standard plan cannot be moved to the One-rate plan. Clients must first enroll in the One-Rate plan, create a new service instance and new buckets before data can be populated.
* Can I upgrade my Cloud Object Storage Lite plan instance to One-Rate plan?

No, Lite Plan instances can only be upgraded to the Cloud Object Storage Standard plan.
* Are there any minimum object size or minimum duration requirements for objects stored with the One-Rate plan?

There are no minimum object size or minimum duration requirements for the One-Rate plan.
* What is the cost of data retrieval from One Rate Active buckets?

There is no data retrieval charge for the One Rate Active buckets.
* What happens if I exceed my monthly allowance for Outbound bandwidth and Operational requests?
For more information, see [Worker node states](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/containers?topic=containers-health-monitorstates).





 What is the difference between virtual and physical machines? 

Virtual machines feature greater flexibility, quicker provisioning times, and more automatic scalability features than bare metal, at a more cost-effective price than bare-metal. However, VMs have a performance tradeoff when compared to bare metal specs, such as networking Gbps, RAM and memory thresholds, and storage options. Keep in mind these factors that impact your VM costs.



* Shared versus dedicated: If you share the underlying hardware of the VM, the cost is less than dedicated hardware, but the physical resources are not dedicated to your VM.
* Hourly billing only: Hourly billing offers more flexibility to order and cancel VMs quickly. You are charged an hourly rate that is metered for only the time that that the worker node is provisioned. The time is not rounded up or down to the nearest hour, but is metered in minutes and charged at the hourly rate. For example, if your worker node is provisioned for 90 minutes, you are charged the hourly rate for 1.5 hours, not 2 hours.
* Tiered hours per month: The [pricing](https://cloud.ibm.com/kubernetes/catalog/aboutpricing) is billed hourly in [graduated tiered](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/billing-usage?topic=billing-usage-chargesgraduated_tier). As your VM remains ordered for a tier of hours within a billing month, the hourly rate that you are charged lowers. The tiers of hours are as follows:



* 0 - 150 hours
* 151 - 290 hours
* 291 - 540 hours
* 541+ hours





Physical machines, or bare metal, (not available for VPC clusters) yield high-performance benefits for workloads such as data, GPU, and AI. Additionally, all the hardware resources are dedicated to your workloads, so you don't have "noisy neighbors". Keep in mind these factors that impact your bare metal costs.



* Monthly billing only: All bare metals are charged monthly.
For example, for an account with aggregated monthly Storage capacity of 100 GB in North America, there are no Outbound bandwidth charges up to 100 GB of transferred data within that month.
* Class A: No charge if class A requests ≤ 100 x Storage capacity in GB, then list prices apply ($0.005/1000). For example, for an account with aggregated monthly Storage capacity of 100 GB in North America, there are no Outbound bandwidth charges up to 10,000 class A requests that month in North America.
* Class B: No charge for class B ≤ 1000 x Storage(GB), then list prices apply ($0.004/1000)For example, for an account with aggregated monthly Storage capacity of 100 GB in North America, there are no Outbound bandwidth charges up to 100,000 class A requests that month in North America.



* Which storage classes are supported in the One-Rate plan?

There is only one storage class available in the One-Rate plan: One-Rate Active
* What are the One-Rate pricing regions?

There are four One-Rate pricing regions: North America, Europe, South America and Asia Pacific. The following Regional and Single Sites are included in the four One-Rate pricing regions:

North America:



* Regional: us-south, us-east, ca-tor
* Single Sites: mon01, sjc04



Europe:



* Regional: eu-gb, eu-de
* Single Sites: ams03, mil01, par01



South America:



* Regional: br-sao



Asia Pacific:



* Regional: au-syd, jp-osa, jp-tok
* Single Sites: che01, sng01



* Is the pricing different for the four One-Rate pricing regions?

The pricing rates are same for North America and Europe, similarly for South America and Asia Pacific. See [One Rate pricing plan details](https://cloud.ibm.com/objectstorage/createpricing).
* Are all Cloud Object Storage features available in the One-Rate Plan?

All Cloud Object Storage features (Versioning, Archive, Replication, WORM, Expiration, etc.) are available in the One-Rate Plan.
* Adjust the volume bandwidth ratio for volumes that are attached to a virtual server instance.



For more information about this service, see [About Block Storage for VPC](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-block-storage-about).





 File Storage for VPC 

File Storage for VPC is a zonal file storage offering that provides NFS-based file storage services. You create file shares in an availability zone within a region. You can share them with multiple virtual server instances within the same zone across multiple VPCs.

IBM Cloud® File Storage for VPC is available for customers with special approval to preview this service in the Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Dallas, Toronto, Washington, Sao Paulo, Sydney, Osaka, and Tokyo regions. Contact your IBM Sales representative if you are interested in getting access.

By using this service, you can:



* Create file shares and mount targets from the UI, CLI, and API.
* When you create a file share, specify an IOPS profile that best meets your storage requirements. You can choose a standard IOPS profile with 3, 5, or 10 IOPS per GB performance. File share capacity can be up to 32 TB and 96,000 IOPS.
* Create a file share by using a custom profile. Choose IOPS performance from 100 IOPS to 48,000 IOPS, based on file share size up to 16 TB.
* View a list of file shares. Select a file share to see its details.
* Manage file shares: Rename or delete file shares and mount targets, add mount targets to a file share, mount and unmount a file share from virtual server instances, and add supplemental IDs to a file share.
* Expand file share capacity.
* Mount file shares on Red Hat, CentOS, or Ubuntu Linux distributions.



For more information, see [About File Storage for VPC](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-file-storage-vpc-about).





 Snapshots for VPC 

Snapshots for VPC are a regional offering that creates a point-in-time copy of your block storage boot or data volume that you manually create.
Storage services 

Bare Metal Servers and Virtual Servers are provisioned with default storage. Bare Metal Servers have a minimum of 1 TB SATA disk space, and Virtual Servers have a minimum of 25 GB SAN storage, with the exception of IBM Cloud SAP-Certified Bare Metal Servers. For more information on the default storage available with these servers, see [IBM Cloud SAP-Certified Infrastructure](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/bare-metal?topic=bare-metal-sap-cert-infrastructuresap-cert-infrastructure).

You can buy extra storage based on your needs. See the following table for a summary of your storage options.



 VPC infrastructure 



Table 1. Storage options - VPC

 Option Description 

 [Block Storage for VPC](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-block-storage-about) Persistent, high-performance data storage for virtual server instances in the IBM Cloud Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). The VPC infrastructure provides rapid scaling across multiple regions and zones, and extra performance and security. 
 [IBM Cloud Object Storage](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-object-storage?topic=cloud-object-storage-getting-started-cloud-object-storage) Distributed, multi-tenant Cloud object storage for data encrypted and dispersed across multiple geographic locations, accessed over HTTP by using a REST API. This service uses the distributed storage technologies that are provided by the IBM Cloud Object Storage System (formerly Cleversafe). 







 Classic infrastructure 



Table 2. Storage options - Classic

 Option Description 

 [Block Storage](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/BlockStorage?topic=BlockStorage-getting-started) Persistent, high-performance iSCSI storage that is provisioned and managed independently of compute instances. iSCSI-based Block Storage LUNs are connected to authorized devices through redundant multi-path I/O (MPIO) connections. 
 [File Storage](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/FileStorage?topic=FileStorage-getting-started) Persistent, fast, and flexible network-attached, NFS-based File Storage.
For each of the One-Rate plan pricing regions(North America, Europe, South America,and Asia Pacific), the total aggregated Storage capacity across all instances (within a region) is used to determine the allowance thresholds.



* Outbound bandwidth: No charge if Outbound bandwidth ≤ 100% of Storage capacity in GB, then list prices apply ($0.05/GBfor North America and Europe, $0.08/GB for South America and Asia Pacific). For example, for an account with aggregated monthly Storage capacity of 100 GB in North America, there are no Outbound bandwidth charges up to 100 GB of transferred data within that month.
* Class A: No charge if class A requests ≤ 100 x Storage capacity in GB, then list prices apply ($0.005/1000). For example, for an account with aggregated monthly Storage capacity of 100 GB in North America, there are no Outbound bandwidth charges up to 10,000 class A requests that month in North America.
* Class B: No charge for class B ≤ 1000 x Storage(GB), then list prices apply ($0.004/1000)For example, for an account with aggregated monthly Storage capacity of 100 GB in North America, there are no Outbound bandwidth charges up to 100,000 class A requests that month in North America.







 Which storage classes are supported in the One-Rate plan? 

There is only one storage class available in the One-Rate plan: One-Rate Active





 What are the One-Rate pricing regions? 

There are four One-Rate pricing regions: North America, Europe, South America and Asia Pacific. The following Regional and Single Sites are included in the four One-Rate pricing regions:

North America:



* Regional: us-south, us-east, ca-tor
* Single Sites: mon01, sjc04



Europe:



* Regional: eu-gb, eu-de
* Single Sites: ams03, mil01, par01



South America:



* Regional: br-sao



Asia Pacific:



* Regional: au-syd, jp-osa, jp-tok
* Single Sites: che01, sng01







 Is the pricing different for the four One-Rate pricing regions?