Working with the watsonx.data Lite plan

The Lite plan allows you to provision a IBM® watsonx.data instance that is free to use, with limits on capacity (500 Resource Units) and features for a time frame of 30 days. You can use the account to create a Lite plan instance based on the Generative AI use case, explore and familiarize yourself with watsonx.data.

1. Provision a Lite plan instance. See Provisioning the Lite plan.
2. After you provision a Lite plan instance, you are presented with the Welcome to watsonx.data window. The UI includes components (engines, services, and storages).
   Attention: The Lite plan usage consumption starts after you provision the instance. Resource units (RU) are consumed even when the instance is not being used. To monitor usage, see Viewing usage. However, RU consumption reduces if you pause or delete the engine. Pause engines and services when not in use to maximize availability.
3. From the Welcome to watsonx.data window, select one of the following options:

   The watsonx.data UI provides on-screen instructions that take you through guided workflows to run a Presto query by using a sample worksheet and perform data ingestion.

   • Take a home page tour: View the home page tour to learn about entry points.
   • Start working with data: Run sample queries and try ingesting data.
   • Skip for now: Go directly to the home page.
4. To query data using sample worksheets, select Start working with data and click Continue. You can view the following tiles:

   Use the Start working with data option to query data. To allow a seamless query experience, a read-only sample IBM COS storage is already available and is by default associated to the Presto engine.

   • Explore a sample worksheet: watsonx.data Lite plan instance provides sample worksheets (including queries) that help users run Presto queries easily. Select this tile and follow the on-screen instructions to run your first Presto query.
   • Ingest data into watsonx.data: Select this tile to perform data ingestion.
   • Build NoSQL and AI applications: Data Engineers and Platform Administrators can create their own database and explore the product.
   1. If you select Explore a sample worksheet, the Query workspace page opens and the Sample worksheets section is highlighted.
   2. Select the worksheet and click Run on <engine> to execute the query.

      The query is executed successfully and you can view the query result in the Results section. You can also explore more Query workspace related functionalities. See Running SQL Queries.

5. To ingest data, select Ingest data into watsonx.data and configure storage before performing data ingestion.

   Use the Ingest data into watsonx.data option for data ingestion. Before performing data ingestion, associate a storage. If you use a trial account, a new IBM Cloud Object Storage instance is automatically provisioned with default name (watsonx-data-cos), and a new bucket is attached with default name (watsonx-data-instanceId). If you use a paid account, you must provision a new IBM Cloud Object Storage instance from the Create COS instance page.

   Note: The storage associated is used as a data bucket by Milvus and as an engine home bucket by Spark.
   1. If you select Ingest data into watsonx.data, the Data manager page opens.
   2. Before you begin to ingest data, configure the storage for ingestion.
   3. Click Set up now. The Finish set up page opens.
      • If you use a trial account: If you do not have an IBM COS instance, a new IBM COS instance is provisioned with default name (watsonx-data-cos) and a new bucket is attached to it with default name (watsonx-data-instanceId). If you have an IBM COS instance, a new bucket is attached to it with default name (watsonx-data-instanceId). Click Finish.
      • If you use a Paygo account: If you have an IBM COS instance in a Paygo account, it is fetched and a new bucket with a default name is attached to it. If you do not have an IBM COS instance, you must provision a new IBM COS instance. From the Finish set up page, click Create new instance to create a new COS instance. Select the storage. Click Finish.

      You can also add storage from the Infrastructure manager page and ingest data into it.

      From Add Component > Storage, select the storage. To add the first bucket, some tiles for storages are disabled with the message: "Register a bucket from the available options first." Buckets that can be added are enabled based on the available engines and services. The buckets that meet the criteria for the available engines are enabled to be added as the first bucket:

      • For Spark: IBM COS storage, Amazon S3.
      • For Presto (Java): IBM COS storage, Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage.
      • For Presto (C++): IBM COS storage, Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage.
      • For Milvus: IBM COS storage, Amazon S3, MinIO, Azure Data Lake Storage, Google Cloud Storage.

      From Add Component > Storage > IBM COS storage, for a Lite plan instance, there are two options:

      • Discover COS instance: Selects an existing IBM COS instance and an attached bucket on your IBM Cloud account. If no COS instance and bucket are found, a first-time COS instance and bucket creation feature will be enabled, allowing for automatic COS instance and bucket creation with a generated default naming scheme. This automation only works if no buckets are registered on the watsonx.data instance. If multiple IBM COS instances and buckets are detected, select the IBM COS instance that contains the desired bucket to register with watsonx.data, and configure the following details:

        Field	Description
        Display name	Enter the name to be displayed. The following special characters are not allowed: ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) = + : { } < > ? ' \ ; `
        Associate catalog	Select the checkbox to add a catalog for your storage. This catalog is associated with your storage and serves as your query interface with the data stored within.
        Activate now	Activate the storage immediately or activate it later.
        Catalog name	Enter the name of your catalog. The following special characters are not allowed: ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) = + : { } < > ? ' \ ; `

      • Register my own: You can use any existing IBM COS bucket from an existing instance or provision a new instance. To provision a new IBM COS instance, see Create COS instance.

      To explore how the watsonx.data service interacts with the data you bring in, see Adding your storage and querying data.

   4. Go to the Infrastructure manager and verify that the storage is associated with the engine and the Spark engine is in running status, without which you cannot perform ingestion.
   5. After you verify, go to the Data manager page and click Ingest data. For more information, see About data ingestion.
   Important: You cannot scale the existing engine or service or add a new engine (or service). To add a new engine or service, you must delete the existing engine or service. You can add only one Presto (Java) engine, Spark engine (single node, small size - 8 vCPU, 32GB node) and Milvus service (Milvus with size specification, Starter - 1 Million vectors, Index Parameters - 64, Segment size (1024)). To understand the restrictions, see Lite plan.
6. To build scalable, real-time NoSQL and AI applications, select Build NoSQL and AI applications.

   When you select the Build NoSQL and AI applications option, the Astra DB sign-up page opens. Sign in to continue to the Astra DB user interface or create an account to continue to the Astra DB user interface, where you can create and manage databases for your applications and AI workloads.

7. To explore Query History Monitoring and Management (QHMM), enable the feature. This feature is disabled by default for the Lite plan instance.

   To enable the feature, see Enabling QHMM.

8. To monitor the Lite plan Resource Units usage level, go to Billing section in the watsonx.data UI or view the Current plan tile on the Welcome page.

   For the Lite plan, in the watsonx.data UI, the Billing section displays a widget showing the Resource Unit consumption.

   If the allocated Resource Units or time runs out, your Lite instance will be suspended. You can still launch the IBM Cloud instance, but cannot use it. To manually delete your IBM Cloud Lite instance:

   1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
   2. Click Resource list. The list of resources appears.
   3. In Resource list, expand Databases.
   4. To delete an instance, click the overflow menu icon at the end of the row and click Delete. A delete confirmation dialog is displayed.
   5. Click Delete.

   For more information about manually deleting an instance, see Deleting instance.