vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
For more information, see [Pricing](https://www.ibm.com/cloud/vpc/pricing).

When you use the [fast restore](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-snapshots-vpc-aboutsnapshots_vpc_fast_restore) feature, your existing regional plan is adjusted. Billing for fast restore is based on instance hours. For more information about the cost of fast restore, see [Pricing](https://www.ibm.com/cloud/vpc/pricing).



 Can I add tags to a Block Storage for VPC snapshot? 

Depending on the action that you're performing, you can add user tags and access management tags to your snapshots. User tags are used by the backup service to periodically create backup snapshots of the volume. Access management tags help organize access to your Block Storage for VPC snapshots. For more information, see [Tags for Block Storage for VPC snapshots](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-snapshots-vpc-about&interface=uisnapshots-about-tags).





 Can I use volume snapshot for disaster recovery? 

You can use your snapshots and backups to create volumes in case of an emergency. You can also create copies of your snapshot in other regions and use them to create volumes there. However, the snapshot and ackup services do not provide continual backup with automatic failover. Restoring a volume from a backup or snapshot is a manual operation that takes time. If you require a higher level of service for automatic disaster recovery, see IBM's [Cloud disaster recovery solutions](https://www.ibm.com/cloud/disaster-recovery).





 How many copies of my backup can I create in other regions? 

You can copy a snapshot from one region to another region, and later use that snapshot to restore a volume in the new region. Only one copy of the snapshot can exist in each region. You can't create a copy of the snapshot in the source (local) region.
For the Reserved offering, the vCPU and RAM virtual data center reservations are pre-allocated and their availability is guaranteed.



* The price is calculated monthly for the full reservation and it is based on the allocation size of the virtual data center.
* vCPU and RAM resources can be increased and decreased later as required.
* The amount of storage that can be allocated and used in the virtual data center is unlimited. Charges are calculated per hour and are based on GB of allocated storage.
* The amount of inbound and outbound public networking is unlimited. Public outbound bandwidth is charged per GB.



For more information, see [VMware Shared pricing](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vmwaresolutions?topic=vmwaresolutions-shared_pricing).







 Virtual data center name 

The virtual data center name is set to vdc-xx by default, where xx represents two randomly generated alphabetic characters.

You can also specify a virtual data center name that meets the following requirements:



* The maximum length is 128 characters.
* Only alphanumeric, dash (-), and underscore (_) characters are allowed.
* The name must be unique within all active virtual data centers in your account. You can create a virtual data center that has the same name as a previously deleted virtual data center.







 Resource group 

Use resource groups to organize the resources in your account for access control and billing purposes. The default resource group in your account is selected by default. You can also select another resource group according to your needs. The resource group that you select cannot be changed after the virtual data center is created.

If No resource group available is displayed in this field, you currently do not have the permission to add the virtual data center to any resource group in this account. Contact the account owner to be assigned an Editor or Administrator role on a resource group in the account. For more information, see [IAM access](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/account?topic=account-userroles).







 Deployment topology 



* Single-zone VMware virtual data center deploys your virtual data center in a single-zone data center.
Profile name Naming convention component What it means 

 mx2-16x128 m Memory Optimized family 
 x Intel x86_64 CPU Architecture 
 2 The generation for the underlying hardware 
 — spacer 
 16 16 vCPU 
 x spacer 
 128 128 GiB RAM 







 Profiles available on Hourly Consumption Billing 

All IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC are available with Hourly Consumption Billing, which includes Suspend Discounts and Sustained Usage Discounts. With Suspend Discounts, storage charges occur only if the server is in Shutdown state. With Sustained Usage Discount, the more a server is used, the less the cost per hour.





 Storage specifications 

When the virtual server profiles for SAP HANA are initially provisioned, the servers all have one pre-configured volume (vda) attached with the following basic layout:



Table 4. Storage configuration of the default virtual server deployment (boot volume)

 File system Partition Storage type size (GB) Nr. of <br>IOPS 

 / vda1 Pre-configured boot volume 100 3,000 
 /boot vda2 Pre-configured boot volume 0.25 3,000 



To fulfill the size and I/O requirements for SAP NetWeaver or SAP AnyDB, more [IBM® Cloud Block Storage for Virtual Private Cloud](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-block-storage-about) volumes need to be added as data volumes to the virtual server configuration.

Block Storage Volumes for Virtual Servers can be created based on different volume profiles that provide different levels of IOPS per gigabyte (IOPS/GB). For more information, see [IOPS tiers](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-block-storage-profilestiers) for details.

You must consider the total IOPS required for your installation and the performance characteristics of your database. One option is to colocate multiple directories into a single large volume with high IOPS, versus isolating directories into individual small volumes with an insufficient number of IOPS for the workload characteristics.
Data volumes of 235 GB

Boot volumes of 200 GB

Deployed VMs of 160 GB



Table 10. Account billable for storage use case

 Name Size State/Description 

 data-volume-1 20 GB Available 
 data-volume-2 25 GB In-use (attached to vm-1) 
 data-volume-3 100 GB In-use (attached to vm-1) 
 data-volume-4 30 GB Available 
 data-volume-5 60 GB In-use (attached to vm-2) 



Total billable storage = 595 GB



* Data volumes: 235 GB
* Image volumes: 200 GB
* Deployed VMs: 160 GB









 Pricing for VPN connection 

When you use a VPN connection, you are billed monthly.

IBM charges with the base price hourly per connection. The base price varies per geography. So if you use one vpn connection that is active for a month, the monthly bill would be $base price X 24 hours X 30 days.





 Pricing for Power Edge Router 

As a Power Systems Virtual Server user, you are charged based on the Transit Gateway connections that you use:



* New Transit Gateway that you create in a PER workspace.
* Existing Transit Gateways that add Power Systems Virtual Server workspace to their existing connection.



Here are some more PER charges based on the following Transit Gateway specifics:



* Routing option
* Number of connections



The following table shows the charges based on the routing option that you select:



Table 13. TGW charges based on routing

 Routing type Charges 

 Local routing data transfer No charges 
 Global routing data transfer $0.009405 GB 



The following table shows the charges based on the number of connections (includes all types of connection such as DL, VPC, etc.) that you create:



Table 14. TGW charges based on number of connections

 Number of connections Charges 

 1 - 4 No charges 
 5 - 20 $9.405 
 21 - 50 $7.315 
 51+ $4.7025 



The Transit Gateway charges indicated in the tables above are subjected to change.
* 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.
* Longer ordering process: After you order or cancel a bare metal server, the process is completed manually in your IBM Cloud infrastructure account. Therefore, it can take more than one business day to complete.

VPC Generation 2 only: Prices vary by region where the underlying worker node infrastructure resides, and you can get sustained usage discounts. For more information, see [What are the regional uplift charges and sustained usage discounts for VPC worker nodes?](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/containers?topic=containers-costscharges_vpc_gen2).



For more information about worker node specifications, see [Available hardware for worker nodes](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/containers?topic=containers-planning_worker_nodesplanning_worker_nodes).





 Public bandwidth 

Bandwidth refers to the public data transfer of inbound and outbound network traffic, both to and from IBM Cloud resources in data centers around the globe.

Classic clusters: Public bandwidth is charged per GB. You can review your current bandwidth summary by logging into the [IBM Cloud console](https://cloud.ibm.com/), from the menu ![Menu icon](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs-content/v1/content/4d497aff9e27b92fbbc2ee4e343a9ec4549cb1d7/icons/icon_hamburger.svg) selecting Classic Infrastructure, and then selecting the Network > Bandwidth > Summary page.

Review the following factors that impact public bandwidth charges:



* Location: As with worker nodes, charges vary depending on the zone that your resources are deployed in.
* Tier 6: $58.50/concurrent VSI for 1000-1,499 virtual servers
* Tier 7: $56.25/concurrent VSI for 1500-2,999 virtual servers
* Tier 8: $52.50/concurrent VSI for additional virtual servers passing 3,000



Additional Persistent Storage



* $4 per 10 GB per user per month







 Base Flex (Per User) 

This plan offers charge based on the total number of active user registred in system for the month. it offers each user VSI with standard configuration(2 vCPU, 8GB RAM, 100GB Disk) including OS license for 240 VSI hours each month. If any one user needs to expand the VSI configuration, we will count as additional user based on the expanded VSI configuration.

Pricing (billed monthly)



* Tier 1: $20/user/month for 1-250 users
* Tier 2: $19/user/month for 251-500 users
* Tier 3: $18/user/month for 501-1000 users
* Tier 4: $17/user/month for 1001-2000 users
* Tier 5: $16/user/month for 2001-4000 users
* Tier 6: $15/user/month for over 4000 users







 Base Flex (Per VSI Hour) 

This plan offers charge based on the total number of VSI running hours for your institution/user per month. It offers VSI with standard configuration(2 vCPU, 8GB RAM, 100GB Disk) including OS license.

Pricing (billed monthly)



* $0.45 per hour







 Premium 

A plan that offers a vGPU support for VSI reservation and charge based on the maximum number of virutal server (also known as Concurrent User) provisioned at any moment of the given month.

The total capacity offered is:



* A vGPU VSI configuration: 4 vCPU, 16GB RAM, vGPU: 1GB GPU memory, 100GB Disk



Pricing (billed monthly)



* Tier 1: $150/concurrent VSI for the first 1-49 virutal servers
* Tier 2: $142.50/concurrent VSI for 50-99 virutal servers
But these functions don't impact the physical server status. Billing is suspended for some types of instances when powered off. However, any persistent storage continues to be billed. For more information about suspend billing, see [Suspend billing for VPC](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-suspend-billing).









 Next steps 

See to the following topics to start planning and creating your bare metal servers on VPC:



* [Planning for Bare Metal Servers for VPC](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-planning-for-bare-metal-servers)
* [Creating a bare metal server on VPC](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-creating-bare-metal-servers)
The following table shows the charges based on the number of connections (includes all types of connection such as DL, VPC, etc.) that you create:



Table 14. TGW charges based on number of connections

 Number of connections Charges 

 1 - 4 No charges 
 5 - 20 $9.405 
 21 - 50 $7.315 
 51+ $4.7025 



The Transit Gateway charges indicated in the tables above are subjected to change. To calculate your pricing, use the [IBM cost estimator](https://cloud.ibm.com/estimator) in IBM Cloud console.





 End of billing 

The monthly billing cycle ends when you delete the LPAR. If you scale your infrastructure up and down in response to workload requirements, your billing follows the timing of the LPAR provision change. If you stop the LPAR, the billing process is not stopped. You must delete the LPAR to stop the billing cycle.

You are still charged if the VM is in a suspended state. When your VM is inactive, you can use Dynamic Logical Partitioning (DLPAR) to resize it to a minimal state. You can drastically decrease the price per hour by reducing the VM's core count and memory.
Provision vSAN storage cluster 

This tutorial may incur costs. Use the [Cost Estimator](https://cloud.ibm.com/estimator/review) to generate a cost estimate based on your projected usage.

This tutorial is part of [series](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/solution-tutorials?topic=solution-tutorials-vpc-bm-vmwarevpc-bm-vmware-objectives), and requires that you have completed the related tutorials in the presented order.

You need to have a minimum of three Bare Metal Servers for VPC with local SSDs. Make sure you provisioned your Bare Metal Servers for VPC with a compatible [profile](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-bare-metal-servers-profilebare-metal-servers-profile-list).

In this tutorial, a vSAN cluster is created using the local disks attached the Bare Metal Servers for VPC. This phase is optional, if you use NFS.



 Objectives 

In this tutorial, you will create a vSAN cluster using the local disks attached the Bare Metal Servers for VPC.

Zoom

![vSAN as a Datastore](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs-content/v1/content/f84e2238288b7f0355715a4c355609ce7ac48fb0/solution-tutorials/images/solution63-ryo-vmware-on-vpc/Self-Managed-Simple-20210813v1-VPC-vsan.svg)

Figure 1. vSAN as a Datastore





 Before you begin 

This tutorial requires:



* Common [prereqs](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/solution-tutorials?topic=solution-tutorials-vpc-bm-vmwarevpc-bm-vmware-prereqs) for VMware Deployment tutorials in IBM Cloud VPC



This tutorial is part of series, and requires that you have completed the related tutorials.
Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV) quarterly scanning is a requirement of the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council. ASV scanning of VPN data-plane appliances is solely a customer responsibility. IBM does not use ASVs to scan data-plane appliances because these scans can negatively impact customer workload functions and performance.





 What metrics am I charged for if I am using VPN gateway for VPC? 

The following metrics are collected for VPN gateway billing on a monthly basis:



* VPN Gateway Instance Hour: How much time your VPN gateway instance is up and running.
* VPN Connection Hour: How much time each of your VPN connections is established and maintained on the VPN gateway.
* Floating IP: The number of active floating IP addresses being used by the VPN gateway instance.



See the IBM Cloud VPN tab on the [Pricing](https://www.ibm.com/cloud/vpc/pricing) page for the unit pricing per hour in each region for VPN gateway.

While using a VPN gateway, you are also charged for all outbound public internet traffic billed at VPC data rates. See the Data Transfer tab on the [Pricing](https://www.ibm.com/cloud/vpc/pricing) page for details about the unit pricing for outbound data transfer.





 Why doesn't the route-based VPN gateway route the traffic? 

If you configured a VPC route and its next hop is a VPN connection, the following use cases block the traffic forwarded through the VPN connection.



* The security groups associated with the VPC instance do not permit the traffic; the network ACLs associated with the subnet of the VPC instance and VPN gateway blocked the traffic. For more information about configuring security groups and network ACLs, see [Configuring ACLs and security groups for use with VPN](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-acls-security-groups-vpn).
* The traffic source IP is not in any subnet associated with the VPC routing table. For example, the VPC routing table is associated with subnet A and includes a route whose next hop is a VPN connection.
Classic clusters only: Consider [creating a reservation](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/containers?topic=containers-reservations) to lock in a discount over 1 or 3 year terms for your worker nodes. After you create the cluster, add worker pools that use the reserved instances. Typical savings range between 30-50% compared to regular worker node costs.
6. Standard clusters: Set up your IBM Cloud infrastructure networking to allow worker-to-master and user-to-master communication. Your cluster network setup varies with the infrastructure provider that you choose (classic or VPC). For more information, see [Planning your cluster network setup](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/containers?topic=containers-plan_clusters).



* VPC clusters only: Your VPC clusters are created with a public and a private cloud service endpoint by default. Optional: If you want your VPC clusters to communicate with classic clusters over the private network interface, you can choose to set up classic infrastructure access from the VPC that your cluster is in. Note that you can set up classic infrastructure access for only one VPC per region and [Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF)](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/account?topic=account-vrf-service-endpointvrf) is required in your IBM Cloud account. For more information, see [Setting up access to your Classic Infrastructure from VPC](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-setting-up-access-to-classic-infrastructure).
* Classic clusters only, VRF and service endpoint enabled accounts: You must set up your account to use VRF and service endpoints to support scenarios such as running internet-facing workloads and extending your on-premises data center. After you set up the account, your VPC and classic clusters are created with a public and a private cloud service endpoint by default.



1. Enable [VRF](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/account?topic=account-vrf-service-endpointvrf) in your IBM Cloud infrastructure account.
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. On the VMware Shared order page, select the About tab to view available storage policy offerings.

General metrics

Storage metrics

Operating system metrics



Table 3. VMware Shared Solutions Reserved billing plan - General metrics

 Metric Frequency Description 

 MAX_VCPU Monthly The peak vCPU allocation for the virtual data center over the period of one month. The peak vCPU metric is determined by the largest vCPU reservation value that is selected by the customer over a one month period. 
 MAX_RAM_GB Monthly The peak memory allocation for the virtual data center over the period of one month. The peak vCPU metric is determined by the largest memory reservation value that is selected by the customer over a one month period. 
 TOTAL_EGRESS_GB Usage The total outbound public traffic is charged per GB transferred over the period of one month. This value includes the outbound traffic through the virtual data center NSX edge to the public internet. 







 Private network endpoint billing plan 

Private network endpoint usage incurs charges as part of the on-demand or reserved virtual data center plan. On the VMware Shared order page, select the About tab to view the pricing plan details.



Table 4. Billing plan for private network endpoints

 Metric Frequency Description 

 MAX_PRIVATE_NETWORK_ONE_G_COST Monthly Charge for private network endpoint at 1 GB uplink over a period of one month. 
 MAX_PRIVATE_NETWORK_TEN_G_COST Monthly Charge for private network endpoint at 10 GB uplink over a period of one month. 







 Licenses and fees for Veeam Availability Suite and Zerto 

Veeam® and Zerto usage incurs the following on-demand charges.
Dedicated host pricing 

Pricing for dedicated hosts is offered in an hourly and monthly model.

Dedicated host pricing is inclusive of all vCPU, RAM, local storage, and uplink port speed components as instances are provisioned onto dedicated hosts. For more information about pricing, see the [Virtual servers pricing and configuration tool](https://www.ibm.com/cloud/virtual-servers/calculator/).

With dedicated hosts, extra local storage disks are available on first, second, third, fourth, and fifth disks. Extra capacity up to 400 GB on each secondary disk is also available.

Hourly instances can be provisioned on hourly and monthly hosts. Monthly instances can be provisioned on only monthly hosts.



Table 1. Dedicated host configurations

 Host configuration  vCPU  RAM (GB)  Local storage (TB SSD) 

 56x242x1.2          56    242       1.2                    
 56x484x1.2          56    484       1.2                    



Pricing varies by region.

SAN (network attached), premium OSs, and add-ons are charged hourly or monthly, by the instance, depending on the instance provisioned on the dedicated host. Pricing for these components is consistent with the existing offering on public instances and dedicated instances.

For example, a dedicated instance that is provisioned on a dedicated host with the following configuration isn't charged by the instance. vCPU, RAM, local storage, and uplink port speeds are included in dedicated host charges.



*  8 vCPU
*  16 GB RAM
*  100 GB Local SSD first disk
*  400 GB Local SSD second disk
*  400 GB Local SSD third disk
*  1 Gbps public and private network uplinks (dedicated host)
* 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.
* Longer ordering process: After you order or cancel a bare metal server, the process is completed manually in your IBM Cloud infrastructure account. Therefore, it can take more than one business day to complete.

VPC Generation 2 only: Prices vary by region where the underlying worker node infrastructure resides, and you can get sustained usage discounts. For more information, see [What are the regional uplift charges and sustained usage discounts for VPC worker nodes?](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/openshift?topic=openshift-costscharges_vpc_gen2).



For more information about worker node specifications, see [Available hardware for worker nodes](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/openshift?topic=openshift-planning_worker_nodesplanning_worker_nodes).





 Compute licenses 

In Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud, worker nodes require OpenShift Container Platform licenses to cover the use of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. OpenShift Container Platform licenses can be supplied by an [existing IBM Cloud Pak entitlement](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/openshift?topic=openshift-costslicenses-cloud-pak) or [by Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/openshift?topic=openshift-costslicenses-on-demand).



 OCP licenses from Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud 

When you create worker nodes by adding a worker pool or cluster, Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud helps you include the purchase of OpenShift Container Platform licenses for the worker nodes.