Understanding regions

Skytap operates multiple data centers, allowing Skytap resources—such as virtual machines, environments, templates, and assets—to be located close to your users. Each of these data centers is referred to as a region.

Skytap regions are independently hosted in separate data centers. Some Skytap resources (like environments, templates, or assets) are contained within a single region, while others (like users, departments, and projects) are shared across your entire account. For more information, see Overview: Regional and global elements in your account below.

Your account may have access to one or more regions. If you need access to additional regions, contact your primary account administrator.

The current Skytap regions are:

Skytap region name API name Provider Provider region Geographic location
APAC-2 sng1r1 IBM Cloud SNG01 Singapore, SGP
AU-Sydney-M-1 sym1r1 Microsoft Azure Australia East Sydney, AUS
CAN-Toronto tor1r1 IBM Cloud TOR01 Toronto, CAN
CN-HongKong-M-1 hkm1r1 Microsoft Azure East Asia Hong Kong, CN
DE-Frankfurt-I-1 fri1r1 IBM Cloud FRA04 Frankfurt, DE
EMEA lon1r1 IBM Cloud LON02 London, UK
IE-Dublin-M-1 dbm1r1 Microsoft Azure North Europe Dublin, IE
IN-Pune-M-1 pnm1r1 Microsoft Azure Central India Pune, IN
NL-Amsterdam-M-1 amm1r1 Microsoft Azure West Europe Amsterdam, NL
SG-Singapore-M-1 sgm1r1 Microsoft Azure Southeast Asia Singapore, SGP
UK-London-M-1 ldm1r1 Microsoft Azure UK South London, UK
US-Central dal1r1 IBM Cloud DAL09 Dallas, TX, USA
US-East-2 wdb1r1 IBM Cloud WDC04 Ashburn, VA, USA
US-Texas-M-1 txm1r1 Microsoft Azure South Central US San Antonio, TX, USA
US-Virginia-M-1 vam1r1 Microsoft Azure East US Ashburn, VA, USA
US-West tuk1r1 Skytap   Tukwila, WA, USA
Contents

Overview: Regional and global elements in your account

Every feature and resource in Skytap can be placed into one of two categories:

  • Global elements – exist across the entire account and apply equally to all regions (such as users and projects).

  • Regional elements – are contained within a single region, and must be created or configured separately if they are to exist in more than one region (such as environments, templates, and assets).

    You can’t change the region for a regional element, but you can copy it to another region.

Regional resources and features

  • Environments and templates

    • Each environment and template is associated with a single region. The networks and VMs in the environment or template are also associated with that region.

      To work with an environment or template in multiple regions, create a copy of the environment or template for each region. See Copying an environment or template between regions.

    • Any environments created from a template reside in the same region as the template. Similarly, any templates created from an environment reside in the same region as the environment. These can later be copied to other regions, if needed.
    • Public templates are available in multiple regions; they have already been copied between regions for you.
  • Assets – Assets exist in a single region. You must specify the asset’s region when uploading the asset, as detailed in Adding and sharing Files with the assets page. By placing an asset in a closer geographic region, you can improve its download speed. Additionally, ISOs can only be mounted when a VM and asset are in the same region.
  • Published services – The URL and endpoints for a published service differ for each region. For a list of published service URLs, see the list of IP addresses and port ranges used by Skytap.
  • Public IP addresses – Public IP addresses are associated with a specific region. Public IP addresses are allocated on a per-region basis, so you may use up your allotment of public IP addresses in one region while still having unused public IP addresses available in another.
  • Sharing portals – Each sharing portal has a unique URL associated with a specific environment. If an environment with a sharing portal is copied to a new region, Skytap creates a new sharing portal URL for the copy of the environment in the new region.
  • Inter-Configuration Network Routing (ICNR) – ICNR can be used to connect networks on environments in the same region; ICNR can’t be used to connect environments in different regions. To securely connect environments running in separate Skytap regions over the Internet, you can use two regional VPN endpoints that are themselves connected.
  • WANs – VPNs and Private Network Connections are region-specific within Skytap. A VPN or Private Network Connection can be connected only to Skytap environments and VMs in the same region. Regardless of their region, VPNs and Private Network Connections can be connected to any external network. Two Skytap WANs, one in each region, can be used to securely connect environments running in separate regions.

Global resources and features

Not all Skytap elements are regional. The following elements are universal, and don’t have a region designation.

  • Customer account – Your customer account is shared between all regions, so your company doesn’t need separate accounts for each region. Consequently, all account-wide settings (such as auto-suspend defaults and security policies) are applied to all regions.
  • Users, groups, and departments – User accounts, user groups, and departments are shared across regions. Users have access to all regions that are enabled at the account level. Projects may be used to control user access to region-specific templates.
  • Projects – Projects can contain resources from different regions (for instance, a template from US-West and a template from US-East-2).

Usage limits

The following resource types are tracked globally for your account:

  • VMs (max concurrent)
  • Metered RAM hours (x86 The most common CPU architecture. x86 CPUs support Windows and Linux VMs in Skytap. )
  • Metered RAM hours (Power A CPU architecture that supports IBM i, AIX, and Linux (on Power) in Skytap. )

The following resource types are tracked by region:

  • Storage
  • Concurrent Metered RAM (x86)
  • Concurrent Metered RAM (Power)
  • Public IP addresses
  • Networks

This means that the Metered RAM and storage usage for an environment or template is charged against the usage limit for the region where the environment or template resides.

Administrators can view current usage for the account from the Setting usage limits and viewing usage page.

Notes

  • If Power VMs aren't enabled for your account, Metered RAM hours (Power) and Concurrent Metered RAM (Power) aren't displayed.
  • If regional limits haven't yet been enabled for your account, Storage, Public IP addresses, and Networks are managed globally for your account.

Testing your latency to different Skytap regions

To quickly check your network latency to different Skytap regions, use the Connectivity Checker tool.

Connectivity Checker

Copying an environment or template between regions

To use an environment or template in multiple regions, make a copy for each region. These copies exist independently of one another.

For instructions, see:

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