Item: IBM Power Virtual Server
Rating: 10
Author: Jeffrey Lange

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I was using IBM Power Systems Virtual Server for my small business I had for 7 years which was a screen printing company for apparel. I used it for web development for personal projects and to host clients websites.

Pros and Cons

Super fast OS reload.
Upgrading memory instantly.
Ability to get billed by hour or monthly makes a world of difference for how you can use it to your advantage.
Billing is AFFORDABLE!

Honestly I am really impressed with IBM virtual servers, I can't think of much for improvement.

Return on Investment

A huge return on my investment because switching to a setup that fits my needs helps save me more money each month.
I saved roughly 4X on the monthly amount.
The ability to save images and OS reload them at any time or instantly run multiple servers for load balancing is incredibly useful to handle spikes of traffic.

Alternatives Considered

IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers

As explained before switching from bare metal servers to virtual servers is a world of a difference financially and with performance. I would never go back to a bare metal servers. For example, before with bare metal servers I would have to file a support ticket to upgrade the ram and wait for support to get around to that upgrade while the server went down for a few hours. Doing that exact same process with virtual servers is within minutes! I'm truly blown away by this switch and wish I knew more about it earlier to save financially and to not worry about waiting forever on upgrades with the server.

Key Insights

Do you think IBM Power Virtual Server delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with IBM Power Virtual Server's feature set?

Yes

Did IBM Power Virtual Server live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of IBM Power Virtual Server go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy IBM Power Virtual Server again?

Yes

Other Software Used

IBM Watson Assistant, MySQL, IBM Cloud Backup

Likelihood to Recommend

For about 15 years I always leased a bare metal server until learning more about cloud computing and thinking of what a world of difference it is. Before I would be billed a lot more with a bare metal server than a virtual server. A lot of time I work on side projects that I don't use a lot of data and bandwidth so what's perfect about virtual servers is the ability to turn the instances on and off to be billed an hourly rate. The rate is ridiculously low. Anyone can afford their hourly virtual servers. Make sure to turn them off and not leave them running like you would with a server that is billed monthly or it will get expensive.

Switch to IBM Virtual Servers if you're currently using bare metal servers

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Power Systems Virtual Server