Cloudist VDC - Service description
- Jasenko Masic
- Robert Brink
- 1 Document updated Mar 25, 2025
- 2 Terms and abbreviations
- 3 Service name
- 4 Service overview
- 5 Service features and functions
- 5.1 Features
- 5.1.1 Virtual datacenter
- 5.1.1.1.1 Description
- 5.1.1.1.2 Features
- 5.1.1.2 Networking
- 5.1.1.2.1 Description
- 5.1.1.2.2 Features
- 5.1.1.2.3 Add-on features
- 5.1.1.3 Firewalling and routing
- 5.1.1.3.1 Description
- 5.1.1.3.2 Features
- 5.1.1.4 Virtual machines
- 5.1.1.4.1 Description
- 5.1.1.4.2 Features
- 5.1.1.5 Virtual machine templates
- 5.1.1.5.1 Description
- 5.1.1.5.2 Features
- 5.1.1.6 Backup
- 5.1.1.6.1 Description
- 5.1.1.6.2 Prerequisites
- 5.1.1.6.3 Features
- 5.1.1.6.4 Backup Policies
- 5.1.1.7 Operating system and application licensing
- 5.1.1.7.1 Description
- 5.1.1.7.2 Features
- 5.1.1.8 Roles and permissions
- 5.1.1.8.1 Description
- 5.1.1.9 Regional and Availability Zone feature comparison
- 5.1.1 Virtual datacenter
- 5.1 Features
- 6 Service prerequisites
- 7 Service dependencies
- 8 Service delivery
- 9 Customer responsibilities
- 10 Service owner
- 11 Business owner
- 12 Service level agreement
- 13 Service pricing
- 14 Service support
- 14.1 Information
- 14.2 Support agreement coverage
Document updated Mar 25, 2025
Terms and abbreviations
Terms or abbreviations | Definition |
|---|---|
VDC | Virtual Data Center |
Region | A region is a geographical area where Cloudist provides availability zones. Cloudist regions meet the highest levels of security, compliance, and data protection |
Availability Zone | Each region can contain one or many availability zones. An availability zone is isolated and physically separated from other availability zones and has independent power, cooling, and physical security. Connection between availability zones are delivered through redundant, low-latency and high performance networks. |
ISP | Internet Service Provider |
Microsoft SPLA | Microsoft Service Provider License Agreement can be used by service providers (ie Cloudist) to license eligible Microsoft products on a monthly basis to host software services and applications for their customers. See Microsoft SPLA Program for reference. |
Service name
Cloudist VDC
Service overview
Cloudist VDC provides virtual datacenter capacity to customers for provisioning of virtual machines and other virtual resources, and is delivered as an IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service).
The Cloudist VDC service is built on VMware Cloud Director, designed according to VMware Validated Designs and verified by VMware
Service features and functions
Features
For Regional and availability zone feature comparison, see section below.
Virtual datacenter
Description
A virtual datacenter is a set of resources, ie CPU, memory, network and disk. From these resources virtual machines and other virtual components can be created.
Features
Customer can create, modify and delete one or many virtual datacenters with expandable upper limits above initial baseline, see Regional and availability zone feature comparison section below for virtual datacenter baseline.
Networking
Description
Networking is delivered as internal and external network capabilities.
Internal networks are intended for inter- or intra-VDC traffic, between virtual machines within one or many VDCs within the same organization.
External networks are intended for extra-VDC traffic, between virtual machines in the VDC and clients outside the VDC, ie on the Internet or in customers corporate network. Baseline is 100Mbps shared connection.
Features
Customer can create, modify and delete one or many virtual networks.
Customer can request network interconnection between Cloudist VDC and physical networks, (for example to Colocation equipment or dedicated ISP equipment)
Add-on features
higher Internet connection bandwidth (available in 250, 500 and 1000Mbps)
multiple public IPv4 addresses
ISP redundancy - A higher Internet connection availability delivered through multiple ISPs with Provider Independent (PI) IP-Addresses (this setting can be changed after virtual datacenter is deployed, but will require re-IP of public facing router/firewall and might require changes on remote connections such as IPSec endpoints etc)
Firewalling and routing
Description
Baseline offering is the built-in Edge Service Gateway, residing on shared infrastructure, managed and scaled by Cloudist.
If third party firewalls/routers are required, this can be achieved by customer or through an external IT service provider, contact us for referrals.
Features
Customer can create, modify and delete one or many virtual firewalls/routers in the form of Edge Service Gateway to connect to Internet or other external networks.
Customer can create Edge Service Gateway, modify and delete firewall access rules, NAT rules, IPSec VPN etc. See VMware Cloud Director Tenant user guides in Regional and availability zone feature comparison for technical guidance.
Virtual machines
Description
Virtual machines are software computers that provide the same functionality as physical computers. Like physical computers, they run applications and an operating system.
Features
Customer can create, modify and delete one or many virtual machines running any operating system supported by VMware.
Customer can add, remove and change virtual hardware configuration (CPU sockets, CPU cores, memory, hard disk, network adapter and network) on one or many virtual machines within resource allocation limits set on virtual datacenter supported by VMware.
Customer can power on, power off, restart, shutdown or reset one or many virtual machines.
Customer can create and delete one snapshot per virtual machine to freeze virtual machine state.
Customer can access virtual machine console through web interface.
Customer can update VMware Tools for one or many virtual machines.
Customer can update virtual hardware version for one or many virtual machines.
Virtual machine templates
Description
Cloudist VDC provides virtual machine templates that customers can provision. For virtual machines running Microsoft operating systems, customers must use the templates provided by Cloudist VDC due to Microsoft SPLA licensing compliance.
For virtual machines running Linux operating systems, customers can upload templates of their own or install from ISO media on an empty virtual machine.
Features
Cloudist VDC virtual machine templates running Microsoft operating systems, are configured as Out-Of-Box-Experience installations.
The only purpose of Cloudist VDC virtual machine templates running Microsoft operating systems is due to Microsoft licensing compliance.
Backup
Description
Backup is an add-on feature to Cloudist VDC service, and can be used to protect vApps and/or virtual machines in VDC by backing them up to a physically separated availability zones, either witin the same region or to a availability zone in a remote region. Backups of vApps and/or virtual machines can be used to restore complete vApps, individual virtual machines or individual files from a virtual machine.
Prerequisites
Backup
Existing vApps and/or virtual machines within your Cloudist VDC virtual datacenter that backup policies can be assigned to.
Restore
Backup jobs assigned to a vApp and/or virtual machine have run successfully at least once.
Virtual datacenter with enough capacity to facilitate the added workload of the restored vApp and/or virtual machine
Features
Customer can assign and remove pre-defined backup policies to vApp and/or virtual machine, see Regional and availability zone feature comparison section below for details.
Customer can assign application aware backups to vApp and/or virtual machine by contacting support@cloudist.se or create a service request in https://portal.cloudist.se.
Customer can start instant backups for vApp and/or virtual machine, regardless of pre-defined backup policies.
Customer can restore vApp and/or virtual machines as isolated virtual machine, overwrite existing virtual machine or as individual file(s) from a vApp and/or virtual machine. This can be used to test the integrity of the backed up data at any time.
Customer can monitor the status of backup jobs for vApp and/or virtual machines.
Customer can backup vApp and/or virtual machines without installing any backup agent software.
Backed up data is transferred encrypted from the Cloudist VDC availability zone to a separate availability zone.
If Immutability is enabled, customers and admins cannot delete snaphots as defined in the chosen policy. Immutability is a WORM-like capability that offers another layer of protection against a ransomware attack. This capability enables you to apply a backup lock to selected snapshots and achieve a higher order of immutability for protected data.
If a policy with replication is selected, backup is copied to another region for the specified amount of days and snapshots. For example, a VM running in SE-NORTH-1 which has Premium 90 as the backup policy, will have 14 days of replicated backups sent to SE-CENTRAL-1 where restores can be made.
Backup Policies
Policy | Retention | Restore Points | Replication | Immutable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic 14 | 14 Days | Days 1-7: 1 daily | None | None |
Standard 14 | 14 Days | Days 1-3: 3 per day | None | First 7 days |
Standard 30 | 30 Days | Days 1-3: 3 per day | None | First 14 days |
Standard 30 + Replication | 30 Days | Days 1-3: 3 per day | Days 1-3: 1 daily Total: 3 | First 14 days |
Standard 90 | 90 Days | Days 1-3: 3 per day | None | First 14 days |
Standard 365 | 365 Days | Days 1-3: 3 per day | None | First 14 days |
Standard 7Yr | 7 Years | Days 1-3: 3 per day | None | First 14 days |
Premium 14 | 14 Days | Days 1-4: 6 per day | Days 1-4: 6 per day | First 14 days |
Premium 30 | 30 Days | Days 1-4: 6 per day | Days 1-4: 6 per day | First 30 days |
Premium 90 | 90 Days | Days 1-4: 6 per day | Days 1-4: 6 per day | First 30 days |
Premium 365 | 365 Days | Days 1-4: 6 per day | Days 1-4: 6 per day | First 30 days |
Operating system and application licensing
Description
Microsoft SPLA licensing agreement will be applied if customer is using virtual machines running Microsoft Windows Server operating systems and/or Microsoft applications on virtual machines in the virtual datacenter.
Virtual machines running Microsoft Windows Server operating systems are reported monthly automatically by Cloudist VDC.
Virtual machines running Microsoft applications that are purchased within Cloudist Portal shall be reported monthly by customer in the Cloudist Portal. Any changes to number of licenses must be updated by customer to be in compliance with Microsoft license agreement.
If customer has a valid Microsoft License Mobility Agreement, this can be used to cover operating systems and applications on virtual machines in the VDC. See https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/licensing-programs/software-assurance-license-mobility for details.
Features
Reporting in Cloudist Portal for Microsoft applications, such as SQL Server, Remote Desktop Services etc, is done by providing correct number of licenses. If changes have been done in customer VDC to number of licenses consumed, customer needs to update in the Cloudist Portal list of applications to properly reflect those changes.
Roles and permissions
Description
User permissions and roles can be assigned in Cloudist VDC service, for details read Managing Users, Groups and Roles in VMware Cloud Director.
Regional and Availability Zone feature comparison
Regional and Availability Zone feature differences are highlighted in bold.
Feature | SE-NORTH-1 (applies to all Availability Zones) | SE-CENTRAL-1 (applies to all Availability Zones) |
|---|---|---|
Virtual Datacenter |
|
|
| Pay-As-You-Go | Pay-As-You-Go |
| Per virtual datacenter;
| Per virtual datacenter;
|
| Optional | Optional |
|
|
|
Networking |
|
|
| 25Gbps | 25Gbps |
| 5Gbps | 5Gbps |
| Available | Available |
| Telia, Tele2 | Telia, Tele2 |
| Available | Available |
| Stockholm: ~13ms | Stockholm: ~5ms |
Firewalling and routing (Edge Service Gateway) |
|
|
| ||
|
|
|
Virtual Machine |
|
|
| 2,8GHz | 2,8GHz |
| ALL-FLASH Standard, 750 IOPS | ALL-FLASH Standard, 750 IOPS |
|
|
|
Documentation |
|
|
| ||
| ||
|
Service prerequisites
Customer needs to have account created in Cloudist Portal.
Customer needs to have an Internet connection or Colocation CrossConnect to Cloudist infrastructure to be able to access and manage virtual resources.
Customer needs to have read, accepted and adhere to Terms & Conditions for service Cloudist VDC
Service dependencies
ISP network connection services (if customer is using shared Internet connection provided by Cloudist VDC, optional)
Colocation CrossConnect (if customer is using dedicated network connection, optional).
Cloudist VDC virtual machine backup services (if customer is using virtual machine backup functionality provided by Cloudist VDC, optional)
Microsoft SPLA licensing (if customer is using Microsoft operating systems or Microsoft applications, optional)
Cloud infrastructure hardware and software, as described in Virtual datacenter above
Data center services
Service delivery
Management interface delivery
Cloudist VDC management interface is delivered to customer over secure Internet protocols through https://portal.cloudist.se and VMware Cloud Director tenant interface. These interfaces enables customer to get an overview of service usage and manage virtual resources.
For usage, see VMware Cloud Director Tenant user guides in the Documentation section in Regional and Availability Zone feature comparison.
Operational service delivery
Cloudist VDC operational service delivery is limited to delivering the capabilities of keeping virtual datacenters, virtual machines, virtual firewalls/routers and virtual networks in an available state. This delivery does not include the availability of any operating system, software or other application running in any of the virtual machines, virtual firewalls/routers or other virtual device running in the virtual datacenter. The delivery does not include performance guarantees on virtual machine capabilities such as CPU, memory, disk or networking as delivery is best-effort.
Maintenance windows
Maintenance windows are scheduled as required by Cloudist operations. Downtime during maintenance windows is not included when calculating service availability.
Maintenance window notification will be sent to customer disruption email address and activated in the portal no later than 7 days prior to the maintenance window unless an urgent maintenance according to SLT.
Customer responsibilities
Usage of Microsoft applications according to Operating system and application licensing specification, requires customer to provide correct number of licenses.
If customer is using Colocation CrossConnect (optional), customer needs to ensure the functionality and availability of anything connected beyond the Colocation CrossConnect (optional) service.
Service owner
Robert Brink
E-Mail: robert.brink@cloudist.se
Business owner
Jasenko Masic
E-Mail: jasenko.masic@cloudist.se
Service level agreement
See Service level agreement for details
Service pricing
Monthly payment based on usage previous month.
See calculator at https://portal.cloudist.se for details, or https://www.cloudist.se/en/priser .
Service support
Information
FAQ and guides/articles about the service can be found in Cloudist Solutions Knowledge Base: https://cloudist.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CK/overview
Service desk can be reached at https://portal.cloudist.se or support@cloudist.se.
| General Support Agreement |
|---|---|
Phone support | No |
E-mail support | Yes |
Response time | Within 8 business hours (8.00-17.00 CET, excluding Swedish Public holidays) |
Support agreement coverage
Type | General Support Agreement |
|---|---|
Service requests regarding customer environment that customer could have done themselves | Not included, standard consultancy fee applies. |
Service requests regarding customer environment that Cloudist need to assist customer with | Included during standard business hours (8.00-17.00 CET, excluding Swedish Public holidays) |