So You Have Some Questions...

What types of workloads are suitable for TPG Cloud?

TPG Cloud is a production ready environment capable of running the most demanding workloads, with the control and agility to accommodate workloads of all kinds.

How quickly can compute resources be scaled?

Resources can be scaled via TPG's self-serve customer portal, Frontier. Compute and internet bandwidth modifications take less than 15 minutes.

What storage tiers are available?

There are currently 2 tiers of storage available:

• Premium (SAS) – high performance storage recommended for demanding workloads
• Standard (SATA) - recommended regular day-to-day workloads

Do you guarantee storage IOPS?

No. It gets very complex to provide realistic IOPS performance guarantees as it depends on where IOPS are measured, what workloads are used etc.

Is my data backed up?

Backup is an option available on all our storage tiers. This is a storage level snapshot backup performed by TPG. Snapshots are taken daily and kept on a 35 day retention. Restorations are of a complete VM and can be requested via Frontier.

What connectivity options do I have for my services in the TPG Cloud?

You can choose public Internet connectivity or private connectivity directly into the TPG Cloud. Being integrated into our national Tier 1 network, you can get large bandwidth links to connect to your TPG Cloud services.

What kind of Data Centre Geo-Redundancy is in place?

virtual Data Centre is currently located in 3 Regions, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, which are all TPG owned and operated data centres. Your Data or TPG Cloud services are not replicated or copied to other Regions. This can be setup and configured by customers, but not managed by TPG. New TPG Cloud Regions are expected to be added in the future.

Are resources shared with other customers?

virtual Data Centre customers are provided pools of vCPU (GHz), RAM, Network and Storage which are logically isolated. With VMware, physical resources are operating in a multi-tenant design and load is evenly balanced across the infrastructure, ensuring robust and scalable availability to everyone in the cloud.

What hardware is being provided with this service?

virtual Data Centre provides robust and scalable x86-based infrastructure, designed for compatibility with your vSphere Data Centre. Our TPG Cloud offering is architected for the cloud using the best-in-class hardware available. To stay on the leading edge of the cloud technology movement, our specific hardware vendors remain subject to change.

What are the Change/Maintenance windows for the service?

If scheduled maintenance is required we will make every effort to inform our customers a minimum of 5 calendar days in advance.

Can we use our own management software or other tools to monitor our environment?

Yes. While customers do not have the ability to monitor the management stack directly, users are able to use any technology that leverages the vCloud API. Customers may also deploy agent-based tools to report back to the local data centre.

Can we use VPN tunnels to connect to this service?

Yes. The service supports creating IPsec VPN tunnels through vCloud Director UI using the Edge Gateway services.

How is my data protected?

Users play a key role in security, and customers are encouraged to adopt or bring their own encryption and security practices where appropriate. Further, customers are provided user-level access control, https mandatory connection to the portal, IPSec VPN tunnelling, and strict physical security procedures within the physical data centre itself. VMware virtualisation and vCloud provides best-of-breed levels of resource isolation, designed to ensure that deployed applications are unable to be accessed by unauthorized users.

How does TPG support the availability and redundancy of the TPG Cloud environment?

virtual Data Centre is delivered using infrastructure that is architected for High Availability, leveraging vMotion, DRS and vSphere HA to migrate live workloads and/or automatically restart VM’s in the event of unexpected failure. Using High-Availability Edge Gateways provided by vCloud is designed to ensure that networks are load balanced and available to deliver the most demanding of traffic loads.

Are there any bandwidth or traffic limits/restrictions?

There are no bandwidth or traffic limitations in place.

Is the data transferred between VM to VM within my environment measured and chargeable?

No. The only data that is chargeable is data that is transferred in or out of a public internet connection on our usage-based model where a cents per GB is charged. Data transferred in and out using private or public connectivity based on a bandwidth model is not measured.

What management access is provided?

Customers are provided access to TPG's Frontier to view all their services, including TPG Cloud. Customers are also provided access to the vCloud Director console.

Is an API available?

TPG provide access to the vCloud API, for integrating vCloud-aware applications and platforms such as vCloud Automation Center.

What sort of usage reporting or consumption dashboard is provided?

Frontier, with vCloud Director, provides an aggregate view of your allocation of TPG Cloud resources. Along with viewing the utilization of TPG Cloud capacity, Virtual Machine-level monitoring can be enabled through VMware or 3rd party partner tools using in-guest agents.

We don’t have vCloud Director. Can we still use this service?

Absolutely. TPG Cloud can augment your vSphere resources with compatible and scalable cloud infrastructure. You may even use this service independently of your private data centre should you choose.

How do we bring data and workloads from our other environments/data centres?

We provide multiple ways of migrating your workloads:

• You have the ability to use vCloud Connector to transfer of workloads from your on-premises vSphere or vCloud environment to your vCloud Hybrid Service environment.
• Offline Data Transfer can also be used to migrate very large data sets into your vCloud Hybrid Service environment using an external storage device. This is available as a paid, perincident service from VMware.
• vCloud Director also provides customers with the capability to import or export OVF Virtual Machine images, or other media.

Can we run databases in this environment?

Absolutely. TPG Cloud provides MS SQL-based templates within the public catalogue, ready for deployment. Additional licensing costs are associated for MS SQL as deployed, but users are also able to use Open Source databases, as well as bring their own licenses from database applications which have an active and valid license for this specific environment.

Is there any need for someone on our team to physically visit the Data Centre?

No. Our Data Centre is managed by a highly focused team of experts, and adheres to strict security practices. Customers are not permitted within the confines of the Data Centre itself. This is for the security of all our customers.

How quickly can I get a TPG Cloud service?

For an existing TPG customer, TPG Cloud compute with public Internet connectivity can be provisioned within 15 minutes.

Who do I call if I have an issue?

TPG's Cloud services are all managed through the same help desk as all your other TPG voice, data and Internet services.

Can I visit an TPG Cloud facility?

As the fundamental Cloud architecture is based on a distributed, virtualised platform, it is not practical to view a piece of equipment or a particular data centre location as service can be moved around to aid in performance optimisation and maintaining availability and reliability assurances.

Can I run Microsoft SQL in TPG Cloud?

TPG multi-tenanted cloud platform operates a Microsoft SPLA licensing model, which simplifies your MS-SQL deployments. TPG can provide licensing and access to templates ready to accommodate your database environments.