Cloudist VDC - Service description

Cloudist VDC - Service description


Terms and abbreviations

Terms or abbreviations

Definition

Terms or abbreviations

Definition

VDC

Virtual Data Center, a set of resources (CPU, RAM, disk, networks etc) that can be allocated to virtual machines

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 scalable virtual datacenter resources that allow customers to provision virtual machines and associated infrastructure components. The service is delivered as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and is available on two platforms:

  • VMware Cloud Director

  • Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure (KVM-based).

Both platforms enable customers to deploy, operate, and scale virtual workloads in highly sustainable Swedish datacenters, supported by secure and intuitive self-service management.

Why Cloudist VDC?

  • Swedish regions & low-latency availability zones

  • Two platform options: VMware Cloud Director or KVM (Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure)

  • Transparent usage-based billing with no hidden network fees

  • High-performance all-flash NVMe storage

  • Optional immutability & cross-region backup replication

  • Swedish support and governance

  • Delivered from one of the world´s most sustainable datacenter

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 resource 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 in the VMware VDC services is the built-in Edge Service Gateway, residing on shared infrastructure, managed and scaled by Cloudist.

For KVM based platform, there is a built-in router that along with Security Groups, deliver virtual datacenter security and networking functionality.

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 (VMware based) or built-in router (KVM based) to connect to Internet or other external networks.

Customer can create Edge Service Gateway (VMware based) or built-in router (KVM based), 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 on VMware based platform.

See Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure guides in Regional and availability zone feature comparison for technical guidance on KVM based platform.

 

Virtual machines

Description

Virtual Machines (VMs) act as software-based computers running customer applications and OS.

Features
  • Customer can create, modify and delete one or many virtual machines running any operating system supported by VMware and Virtuozzo for the respective platform.

  • 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 and Virtuozzo for the respective platform. In the Virtuozzo platform, virtual machine configuration is set by choosing a image flavour that fits you compute requirements, for example gp-c2-m8 has 2 CPUs and 8GB RAM.

  • 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/QEMU Tools for one or many virtual machines depending on platform.

  • Customer can update VMware 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 virtual machines in virtual datacenter 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 virtual machines can be used to restore complete individual virtual machines or individual files from a virtual machine.

Prerequisites

Backup

  • Existing virtual machines within your Cloudist VDC virtual datacenter that backup policies can be assigned to.

Restore

  • Backup jobs assigned to a virtual machine have run successfully at least once.

  • Virtual datacenter with enough capacity to facilitate the added workload of the restored virtual machine.

Features
  • VMware platform

    • Customer can assign and remove pre-defined backup policies to virtual machine, see Regional and availability zone feature comparison section below for details.

    • Customer can assign application aware backups to virtual machine by contacting support@cloudist.se or create a service request in https://portal.cloudist.se.

    • Customer can start instant backups for virtual machine, regardless of pre-defined backup policies.

    • Customer can restore virtual machines as isolated virtual machine, overwrite existing virtual machine or as individual file(s) from a 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 virtual machines.

    • Customer can backup 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.

  • KVM platform

    • Customer can assign and remove pre-defined backup policies to virtual machine, see Regional and availability zone feature comparison section below for details.

    • Customer can restore virtual machines as isolated virtual machine, overwrite existing virtual machine or as individual file(s) from a 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 virtual machines.

    • Customer can backup virtual machines without installing any backup agent software.

Backup Policies for KVM platform

Policy

Retention

Restore Points

Replication

Immutable

Policy

Retention

Restore Points

Replication

Immutable

Per customer definition

Depends on Backup Plan schedule chosen by customer

182 restore points

None

Yes

Backup Policies for VMware platform

Policy

Retention

Restore Points

Replication

Immutable

Policy

Retention

Restore Points

Replication

Immutable

Basic 14

14 Days

Days 1-7: 1 daily
Days 8-14: 1 weekly

None

None

Standard 14

14 Days

Days 1-3: 3 per day
Days 4-14: 1 daily

None

First 7 days

Standard 30

30 Days

Days 1-3: 3 per day
Days 4-30: 1 daily

None

First 14 days

Standard 30 + Replication

30 Days

Days 1-3: 3 per day
Days 4-30: 1 daily
Days 1-3: 1 daily replicated

Days 1-3: 1 daily

Total: 3

First 14 days

Standard 90

90 Days

Days 1-3: 3 per day
Days 4-30: 1 daily
Days 31-90: 4 weekly & 1 monthly

None

First 14 days

Standard 365

365 Days

Days 1-3: 3 per day
Days 4-60: 1 daily
Days 61-365: 4 weekly & 9 monthly

None

First 14 days

Standard 7Yr

7 Years

Days 1-3: 3 per day
Days 4-30: 1 daily
Days 31-365: 11 monthly
Years 2-7: 1 yearly

None

First 14 days

Premium 14

14 Days

Days 1-4: 6 per day
Days 5-14: 1 daily

Days 1-4: 6 per day
Days 5-7: 1 daily
Days 8-14: 1 weekly

First 14 days

Premium 30

30 Days

Days 1-4: 6 per day
Days 5-30: 1 daily

Days 1-4: 6 per day
Days 5-7: 1 daily
Days 8-14: 1 weekly

First 30 days

Premium 90

90 Days

Days 1-4: 6 per day
Days 5-90: 1 daily

Days 1-4: 6 per day
Days 5-7: 1 daily
Days 8-14: 1 weekly

First 30 days

Premium 365

365 Days

Days 1-4: 6 per day
Days 5-90: 1 daily
Days 91-365: 4 weekly & 9 monthly

Days 1-4: 6 per day
Days 5-7: 1 daily
Days 8-14: 1 weekly

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)

SE-CENTRAL-1 (applies to all Availability Zones)

Feature

SE-NORTH-1 (applies to all Availability Zones)

SE-CENTRAL-1 (applies to all Availability Zones)

SE-CENTRAL-1 (applies to all Availability Zones)

Virtual Datacenter

VMware Platform

VMware Platform

KVM Platform

  • Allocation model

Pay-As-You-Go

Pay-As-You-Go

Pay-As-You-Go

  • Resource capacity baseline (expandable)

Per virtual datacenter;

  • 100GHz CPU

  • 300GB RAM

  • 10TB storage (ALL-FLASH Standard is set as default storage profile)

  • 100 networks

  • Unlimited number of virtual machines

Per virtual datacenter;

  • 100GHz CPU

  • 300GB RAM

  • 10TB storage (ALL-FLASH Standard is set as default storage profile)

  • 100 networks

  • Unlimited number of virtual machines

Per virtual datacenter;

  • 100 vCPUs

  • 250GB RAM

  • Storage

    • 3TB Basic policy

    • 3TB Standard policy

    • 3TB Premium policy

  • Customer dedicated hardware resources

Optional

Optional

N/A

 

 

 

 

Networking

 

 

 

  • Intra-VDC, maximum bandwidth

25Gbps

25Gbps

25Gbps

  • Shared Internet connection, maximum bandwidth

5Gbps

5Gbps

5Gbps

  • Shared Internet connection redundancy

Optional

Optional

Included

  • Shared Internet connection, ISPs used

Telia, Tele2

Telia, Tele2

Telia, Tele2

  • Colocation CrossConnect

Available

Available

Available

  • Network latency round trip

Stockholm: ~13ms
Malmö: ~24ms
Luleå: ~3ms
Oslo: ~22ms
Helsinki: ~13ms
Copenhagen: ~27ms
Amsterdam: ~32ms
SE-CENTRAL-1: ~16ms

Stockholm: ~5ms
Malmö: ~13ms
Luleå: ~12ms
Oslo: ~12ms
Helsinki: ~15ms
Copenhagen: ~15ms
Amsterdam: ~25ms
SE-NORTH-1: ~16ms

Stockholm: ~5ms
Malmö: ~13ms
Luleå: ~12ms
Oslo: ~12ms
Helsinki: ~15ms
Copenhagen: ~15ms
Amsterdam: ~25ms
SE-NORTH-1: ~16ms

Firewalling and routing (Edge Service Gateway)

 

 

 

  • Performance and limitations

Edge Gateway (v4.0.1), performance and limitations

Edge Gateway (v4.0.1), performance and limitations

 

 

 

 

 

Virtual Machine

 

 

 

  • vCPU, maximum speed

2,8GHz

2,8GHz

2,8GHz

  • Storage policies

ALL-FLASH Basic, 250 IOPS
ALL-FLASH Standard, 750 IOPS
ALL-FLASH Premium, unlimited IOPS

ALL-FLASH Basic, 250 IOPS
ALL-FLASH Standard, 750 IOPS
ALL-FLASH Premium, unlimited IOPS

ALL-FLASH Basic, 250 IOPS
ALL-FLASH Standard, 750 IOPS
ALL-FLASH Premium, unlimited IOPS

 

 

 

 

Documentation

 

 

 

  • Tenant user guides

VMware Cloud Director 10.6 Tenant User Guide

VMware Cloud Director 10.6 Tenant User Guide