Shared responsibilities for Cloud Databases

Learn about the management responsibilities and terms and conditions that you have when you use IBM Cloud® Cloud Databases. For a high-level view of the service types in IBM Cloud and the breakdown of responsibilities between the client and IBM for each type, see Shared responsibilities for IBM Cloud offerings.

Review the following sections for the specific responsibilities for you and for IBM when you use Cloud Databases. For the overall terms of use, see IBM Cloud Terms and Notices.

Incident and operations management

Table 1. Responsibilities for incident and operations
Task	IBM responsibilities	Your responsibilities
Monitoring	Cloud Databases is responsible for hosting monitoring and health services.	The Client is responsible for integrating with the IBM Cloud® Monitoring, IBM Cloud® Activity Tracker, or IBM Cloud® Log Analysis.
High Availability	Cloud Databases is responsible for deploying databases across availability zones in a Multi-Zone Region (MZR), or across hosts in a single-campus multizone region, and storing backups in cross-region Cloud Object Store instances. Cloud Databases provides replication, fail-over features, and infrastructure maintenance or updates. High availability varies based on each database type, refer to database-specific documentation for details.	The Client is responsible for designing application logic to retry connections caused by temporary connection failures (during regular database maintenance and updates).
Database performance	Cloud Databases is responsible for hosting and maintaining database infrastructure.	The Client is responsible for the data model and performance, including tuning the data model, queries, and scaling the database as necessary for application needs.
Operating System	Cloud Databases is responsible for hosting and maintaining database Operating System infrastructure.	The Client is not responsible for, nor has access to, Operating System level activities.

Change management

Table 2. Responsibilities for change management
Task	IBM responsibilities	Your responsibilities
Scaling	Cloud Databases is responsible for scaling infrastructure to meet client requests.	The Client is responsible for choosing, monitoring, and scaling disk, memory, and CPU core allocation for their deployments by using the UI or API. If a database deployment runs out of disk space, it might go down and must be restored from backup.
Version management	Cloud Databases is responsible for maintaining minor versions and patches as described in the version lifecycle policy. Cloud Databases is also responsible for providing availability and tools for database major version upgrades.	The Client is responsible for running major database version upgrades. The Client is also responsible for monitoring for EOL announcements and moving off EOL versions before the end of support date that is announced by Cloud Databases also described in the version lifecycle policy.

Security and regulation compliance

Table 3. Responsibilities for security and regulation compliance
Task	IBM responsibilities	Your responsibilities
Encryption	Cloud Databases is responsible for the encryption of data on disk, in motion, and in backups.	The Client is responsible for choosing and managing appropriate additional security features. If using Key Protect and Bring Your Own Key (BYOK), the client is responsible for managing Key Protect authorizations and keys.
Security	Cloud Databases is responsible for ensuring the security of data on disk and data in motion within our infrastructure.	The Client is responsible for managing IBM Cloud passwords and database passwords, and keeping passwords secure. The Client is also responsible for configuring appropriate network security or isolation (for example, IP allowlists or private endpoints).
Compliance	Cloud Databases is responsible for ensuring adherence, auditing, and certification of compliances listed at the IBM Cloud compliance page.	The Client is responsible for the storing, processing, and transmission of their data. More information on these specific responsibilities can be found in each of the Cloud Databases offerings' specific Security Compliance documentation.

Disaster recovery

For new hosting models, PITR is currently available through the CLI, API, and Terraform.

Table 4. Responsibilities for disaster recovery
Task	IBM responsibilities	Your responsibilities
Backups and restore	Cloud Databases is responsible for automatic daily backups, as well as monitoring the state of client backups.	The Client is responsible for restoration, timeliness, validity of backups, and alerting of failed backups via IBM Cloud® Activity Tracker. More information can be found in the Backup and Restore documentation.
Read-only replicas, Databases for PostgreSQL, Databases for EnterpriseDB, and Databases for MySQL ONLY	Databases for PostgreSQL, Databases for EnterpriseDB, and Databases for MySQL are responsible for providing the capability of deploying read-only replicas across regions (except for replicating data into or outside of `eu-de`).	The Client is responsible for provisioning, configuring, monitoring, and promoting read-only replicas.