If you are transitioning from TigerGraph Cloud V1 to the latest version TigerGraph Distributed Cloud please see the FAQ here: https://docs.tigergraph.com/tigergraph-cloud/tigergraph-cloud-v1-to-tigergraph-distributed-cloud-faqs

Q: How does TigerGraph Cloud compare with other DBaaS offerings?

A: TigerGraph Cloud gets you up and running with the fastest and best price-performance graph platform in just minutes. TigerGraph's native parallel graph and deep link analytics give you both speed and scale, even on the most complex tasks.  In addition, you can now provision a distributed database, as well as a replica cluster for high availability. The GraphStudio visual design interface enables everyone on your team to be a guru in graph. And our starter kits for popular use cases mean you can have a graph application working in minutes. Since it requires far fewer machines to achieve high performance, TigerGraph’s price performance sets a new bar for the graph database industry.

Q: Are there Free Tier Instances or Free Credits for the System?

A: Yes, in both instances.

Free Credits: A $25 credit will be automatically granted to each new registered account. The free credit is valid for 30 days after initial use.

Free Tier Instance: When you select an instance type, you will see that one instance type is designated as the Free Tier. For each registered account, you may provision one solution from the Free Tier. Please note, however, that Free Tier instances do not include backup and do not include support.

If no user activity is detected for more than two hours, TigerGraph may automatically stop a Free Tier instance. Users can manually restart the free tier instances from their cloud portal. After 30 days of inactivity, TigerGraph may terminate the inactive free tier instances. For additional information, see TigerGraph Cloud Terms.

Tip: If you need to save your work from a Free Tier instance, export the solution (which saves your graph and queries) and write queries which print all your data to files. 

Q: In what cloud regions does TigerGraph operate?

A: US-West-1 (N.Cal), US-East-1 (N. Virginia), EU-West-1(Ireland), EU-West-2(UK), EU-Central-1(Germany) and AP-Northeast-1(Japan). More regions will be added soon.

Q: Does TigerGraph Cloud support distributed databases?

A: Yes. In the latest version of TigerGraph Cloud, you can provision a distributed TigerGraph cluster. You may select a partitioning factor up to 10. If you need more than more than 10 instances, please contact TigerGraph at salesdev@tigergraph.com.

Q: Does TigerGraph Cloud support HA?

A: Yes. In the latest version of TigerGraph Cloud, you can provision a highly available TigerGraph cluster by entering 2 for the replication factor during the provisioning process. Future versions of TigerGraph Distributed Cloud will support higher replication factors. The configuration is active-active, meaning that all copies of the data are available to answer queries. 

NOTE: HA systems must have a minimum of 3 instances, This means that the smallest supported cluster configuration for a replicated system is two-way partitioning X two-way replication = four instances. 

Q: What type of server should I use for my data size and workload?

A: Please see the section on pricing on our website at www.tigergraph.com/cloud/. For further assistance, contact TigerGraph at salesdev@tigergraph.com

Q: What services are included?

A: TigerGraph Cloud includes automatic scheduled backup, built-in encryption and other security features, patching, replication and distributed database option.  In addition, you can now provision a distributed database as well as a replica cluster for high availability. As a cloud service, many of the administrative and operational tasks - for monitoring, restoring, upgrading, for example - are just a click away. In addition to operations and management for your TigerGraph databases, TigerGraph Cloud also offers Starter Kits to provide instant experience to various graph analytics use cases. The list of Starter Kits can be found here: https://www.tigergraph.com/starterkits/

Q: Is there a quota for the number of solutions I can provision in a single account?

A: Yes. For basic accounts with credit card billing, there is a limit of 200 vCPUs and 10 solutions. A solution is one logical database, which may include several instances due to a distribution database configuration and replication. For accounts running exclusively on Free Credit and that have not yet entered a valid credit card, there is a limit of 24 vCPUs and two solutions. For each registered account (with or without a valid credit card), you may only provision one solution from the Free Tier. To allow more vCPUs and solutions, please contact TigerGraph at salesdev@tigergraph.com.

Total number of instances in a cluster = replication factor x partitioning factor

Q: Can I run built-in queries directly after my Solution has been provisioned?

A: Data must be loaded and queries must be installed first. Please perform the following steps after the solution is provisioned:

1. Connect to GraphStudio through “Open Solution Via Domain” from the cloud portal.
2. On the Load Data tab, click the Load button to load the sample dataset.
3. On the Write Query tab, click the Install button to install the sample queries.

Now you can run queries on the starter kit's sample data. Please visit tigergraph.com/starterkits to watch the overview video for each starter kit.

Q: How can I monitor my TigerGraph Cloud service?

A: TigerGraph Cloud is instance-based and offers an administrator portal to monitor the performance and health of each machine instance.

Q: Is TigerGraph Cloud cloud-agnostic?

A: TigerGraph Cloud will provide teams with the flexibility to use the cloud vendor of their choice, so there will be no vendor lock-in. Currently, TigerGraph Cloud offers instances on the AWS platform. More cloud platforms are coming soon. If you require immediate assistance to manage TigerGraph on another cloud provider, please contact salesdev@tigergraph.com.

Q: Is the support for TigerGraph Cloud the same as the support for TigerGraph Enterprise?

A: Yes, TigerGraph supports TigerGraph cloud users. See the Support Policy terms at  https://www.tigergraph.com/support-policy/

Q: What is the user interface for the TigerGraph Cloud instance?

A: The TigerGraph GraphStudio™ UI (User Interface) provides an intuitive, browser-based interface that helps users get started quickly with graph-based application development tasks: designing a graph schema, creating a schema mapping, loading data, exploring the graph, and writing GSQL queries.

Q: What graph query language does TigerGraph support?

A: TigerGraph uses GSQL, the query language designed for fast and scalable graph operations and analytics. GSQL’s similarity to SQL, high-level syntax, Turing completeness, and built-in parallelism brings faster performance, faster development and the ability to describe any algorithm.

You can start learning GSQL from our tutorial at docs.tigergraph.com/intro/gsql-101. We also support a RESTful API and JSON output for easy integration with application languages like Python, Java, and C++.

Start learning GSQL and become a TigerGraph Certified Associate today: www.tigergraph.com/certification/

Q: Can I have multiple graphs in one TigerGraph Cloud instance?

A: TigerGraph's MultiGraph feature, available now in the on-premises TigerGraph Enterprise product, will be coming to TigerGraph Cloud soon.

Q: What methods do you support for importing data?

A: We support AWS S3 import and local file upload. Spark loading is available through our open source JDBC Driver. See https://github.com/tigergraph/ecosys/tree/master/etl

Q: If I don’t enter a valid credit card in the account and use the initial $25 free credit, will the data in the provisioned solutions be deleted if I stop the solutions?

A: As long as there is remaining credit in your account, the data of your solutions will be preserved by the provisioned disk after you stop the solutions even if you don’t have a credit card in your account. The data will be available and accessible after you restart the solutions. The free credit is valid for 30 days after initial use. Your solutions will be deleted automatically if the following scenario is detected: there is no remaining valid credit and there is no valid credit card in your account.

‌To use “backup and restore” functionality, you need to enter a valid credit card in your account and choose non free tier instances. The non free tier solutions provisioned after the credit card is entered have backup and restore functionality through TigerGraph’s Admin Portal. Note that any solutions provisioned before entering the credit card will not be upgraded with the backup and restore functionality.

If you choose to terminate the instance, your solutions and data will not be preserved. Please see the "Provisioning, Backup and Restore" section for a detailed explanation of the difference between stopping and terminating a solution.

Q: I can’t find my registration activation email after registering for the first time. Where can I find it?

A: Please check your spam folder. The activation email may be there.

Q: How do I develop a customized application on top of TigerGraph Cloud?

A: Please see Graph Gurus episode 24, where we presented "How to Build Innovative Applications with a Native Graph Database"

Q: I signed up for a TigerGraph Cloud account early, before distributed and HA services were available. Can I still use my earlier solutions? Can I upgrade my solutions to distributed or HA?

A: Our charter TigerGraph Cloud users can access their earlier solutions at our original URL:tgcloud.us. The latest release TigerGraph Distributed Cloud can be accessed at tgcloud.io. We will also be posting additional FAQs in that portal especially for our chapter members.

To see our full list of FAQs, see our product documentation site.

Pricing for TigerGraph Cloud is based on the virtual machine instance(s) and storage capacity you select. Efficient data compression means you'll get a surprising amount of data storage and query performance out of each instance. TigerGraph works with the leading cloud providers (initially AWS) to use the most optimal servers and storage nodes to maximize TigerGraph Cloud performance at the lowest cost to you. 

Q:  How much does TigerGraph Cloud cost?

A:  Your cost is based on the number and size of the instances as well as your storage needs, times the number of hours of use. HA replicas are offered at a discounted rate.To calculate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), please consider the following factors: 

- TigerGraph’s compression rate which yields a graph data footprint smaller than the raw data size;

-Superior loading speed;

-50x to 100x query performance compared to competitors. 

With these factors, TigerGraph Cloud is a lot more cost effective than other graph databases running in the cloud. Please see this independent benchmark report. For more TCO comparisons, please contact salesdev@tigergraph.com. 

Q:  How are services calculated and billed?

A:  Machine instance and storage are billed hourly, which means that you are charged for each continuous period of operation, measured in seconds. Instances incur charges from when they are started until they are stopped (or terminated). Storage attached to instances incur charges from when an instance is first activated until the instance is terminated. Our billing system will total the charges at the end of each calendar month, generate an itemized invoice, and charge your credit card.

Q: What are the hourly prices for instances?

A: TigerGraph Distributed Cloud offers seven different instances, ranging from seven vCPUs with 15 GiB RAM, to 96 vCPUs with 768 GiB RAM. The following web page provides hourly pricing for each instance type along with an estimate of the maximum amount of raw data which can be stored on each instance type, with enough remaining RAM for typical query workloads. See the Sizing tab for more information on estimating your RAM needs.  

View hourly pricing here:  https://www.tigergraph.com/tigergraph-cloud-pricing/

Q: What is the hourly price for storage?

A: There are two components to storage: instance-attached disk storage and backup storage.

Disk Storage is $0.15 /GB/month = $0.0002083 /GB/hour

Backup Storage is based on the maximum number of backups allowed, which is currently fixed at seven.  In the future, TigerGraph Cloud will allow users to specify the maximum number of backups.

Backup Storage is $0.625 /GB/month = $0.0008681 /GB/hour for an allocation of 7 backups.

Q: Can you provide an example of the price to operate a TigerGraph Cloud deployment?

A: Example 1,  a single server with no replica (partition factor is 1; replication factor is 1): 

Suppose you choose TG.C16.M64, and provision 180GB disk

Your monthly cost when the instance is running is: 

$11.28*24*30 + ($0.625+$0.15)*180GB = $8261.10 per month, if running continuously

Your monthly cost when the instance is stopped but not terminated is:

($0.625+$0.15)*180GB = $139.50 per month

Example 2, a single server with 1 additional replica (partition factor is 1; replication factor is 2)

This small configuration is not supported. See "Does TigerGraph Cloud support HA?"

Example 3, a distributed system with 2 partitions, but no replica (partition factor is 2; replication factor is 1)

you choose TG.C16.M64, and provision 180GB disk

Your monthly cost when the instance is running is: 

$11.28*24*30*2 + $0.625*180GB*2 + $0.15*180GB*2= $16522.2 per month, if running continuously

Your monthly cost when the instance is stopped but not terminated is:

$0.625*180GB*2 + $0.15*180GB*2 = $279 per month

Example 4, a distributed system with 2 partitions, with replicas for both partitions (partition factor is 2; replication factor is 2)

you choose TG.C16.M64, and provision 180GB disk

Your monthly cost when the instance is running is: 

$11.28*24*30*2 + $7.9*24*30*2+ $0.625*180GB*2 + $0.15*180GB*2*2= $27952.2 per month, if running continuously

Your monthly cost when the instance is stopped but not terminated is:

$0.625*180GB*2 + $0.15*180GB*2*2 = $333 per month

TIP: If you are doing development or PoC work, you can lower your cost substantially by stopping your instances when not in use. For longer term subscriptions, including annual reserved instances, please contact salesdev@tigergraph.com

Q: How do I pay for usage?

A: There are currently two payment methods: you can use TigerGraph-awarded credits or provide a valid credit card.

Q: Can you invoice me?

A:  In the near future we will introduce an online credit approval process to allow qualified customers pay by invoice. To arrange an annual contract or pre-paid service, contact salesdev@tigergraph.com

Q:  If I switch to a yearly contract, how are my unused funds from my previous applied?

A:  TigerGraph will apply any unused amounts to your account and prorate the amount if you convert to a yearly contract.

Q: If I fail to pay promptly, or if there is a billing problem, what is the risk to all my data? Will it be deleted?

A:  Before deleting any data we will make multiple efforts to contact you using the email address and phone number provided to us when you register. In any case, we will save the last backup of your instance for up to 30 days.

Q: What costs are included in what I’m paying?

A:  Your payment includes both the fixed costs and variable costs that are calculated based on machine instances you've activated and storage you've used, including backup storage.

Q:  How often will prices change?

A:  When new functionalities are added in future versions, pricing may be subject to change. 

Q: Do you offer a discount for annual contracts/commitments?

A: Yes, there is a discount for contracting with TigerGraph for a one-year term. Please contact salesdev@tigergraph.com to discount annual contracts/commitments.

Q: What will I have to pay if I delete my instance before the end of the month?

A: If you are subscribed to our standard hourly service, you will be charged only for your hours of use, as described above.

Q: If I add an instance mid-month, when do I start paying for it?

A: We bill you and charge your credit card at the end of each calendar month.

Q: How do I contact you if I have a billing problem that I can’t solve online?

A: You can either open a support ticket from the cloud portal by clicking “Support” on the menu at the left of the page, or you can send an email to billing@tigergraph.com.

Q: What happens if my monthly costs exceed the credit limit on my credit card?

A: If this happens you can contact salesdev@tigergraph.com and we will provide you with other payment options.

Q: Where can I find TigerGraph's terms and conditions for its products and services?

A: You can find our terms and conditions here: www.tigergraph.com/terms.

Q: How is TigerGraph Cloud priced for development, test, or QA environments?

A: With TigerGraph Cloud, you only pay for what you use.

Q: How do I determine the instance needed for my workload?

TigerGraph Distributed Cloud offers seven different instances, ranging from seven vCPUs with 15 GiB RAM, to 96 vCPUs with 768 GiB RAM. Larger graphs require more RAM. Higher performance calls for both more CPUs and more RAM.

Our pricing table gives initial recommendations for which instance to start with, if you know how much data you will be loading into the graph. We call the input data your "raw data". TigerGraph reorganizes your data into a graph, encoding and compressing it. We have assumed that your stored graph will be about 70% of the size of your raw data. This is a conservative estimate; it's often smaller.

You also need RAM for your graph querying and computation. Workloads vary considerable. In the pricing table, we recommend that your total RAM be about 1.5 times the maximum amount of raw data you think you will load.

If you see you need more space or more compute power, then just scale up.

Contact support@tigergraph.com for more help.

Q: How do I expand the disk size?

Please contact support@tigergraph.com.

Q: Can I migrate my database to a larger (or smaller) instance?

A: Contact TigerGraph Cloud Support for migrating between different instance types. Instance migration is not yet supported through one-click operation; however, migration can be achieved by using backup and restore for some cases.

If you are transitioning from TigerGraph Cloud V1 to the latest version TigerGraph Distributed Cloud please see the FAQ here: https://docs.tigergraph.com/tigergraph-cloud/tigergraph-cloud-v1-to-tigergraph-distributed-cloud-faqs