Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) vs IBM Cloud Virtual Servers

Likelihood to Recommend

It works well as run-of-the-mill NFS that is managed as a service rather than a server. It works anywhere NFS is usable.

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Chris Saenz

Lead System Engineer

Azusa Pacific UniversityHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees

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If you're already a customer of IBM, or using an IBM product through an ASP or reseller, or you need access to the hundreds of services IBM provides, it's a great place to build out your infrastructure.

If you're an established company slowly adding VMs, a smaller provider in the vast digital ocean of choices may be better.

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Scott Galvin

Co-founder

CenturyLinkFinancial Services, 1-10 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)

IBM Cloud Virtual Servers

Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime

Dynamic scaling

Elastic load balancing

Pre-configured templates

Monitoring tools

Pre-defined machine images

Operating system support

Security controls

Pros

EFS is easily made high-availability.
EFS is simple to implement.
EFS uses native NFS file-sharing protocol.

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Chris Saenz

Lead System Engineer

Azusa Pacific UniversityHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees

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The pricing options for services is awesome, offering bare-metal and other high-demand services at hourly rates.
Softlayer offers a huge assortment of high-powered services, such as Nvidia Tesla GPU computing, high-bandwidth connection options, and highly customizable bare-metal servers
All of Softlayers' plans and services are fully adaptable to to fit your needs, with a huge amount of options for both the services they offer and the management options available for those services.

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Craig Nash

Sr. Network Engineer

GodAmongGeeks.ComInformation Technology and Services, 1-10 employees

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Cons

EFS could be made highly-available across regions.
EFS could be made with a better on-premise extension than Cloud Gateway.
EFS could be made to support CIFS/SMB.

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Chris Saenz

Lead System Engineer

Azusa Pacific UniversityHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees

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The IBM Cloud Web UI is very slow and not responsive
It would be nice to provide a direct way to choose a template image when creating a VSI
It would be nice if transient VSIs can be resized (CPU and Mem)

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Verified User

Team Lead in Information Technology

Research Company, 10,001+ employees

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Likelihood to Renew

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

IBM Cloud Virtual Servers 8.2

Based on 1 answer

It's hard to imagine not renewing having spent so much time setting up our infrastructure to utilise the CVS

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Verified User

Strategist in Finance and Accounting

Financial Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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Support Rating

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) 8.0

Based on 1 answer

The documentation is sufficient for setting up and it is basic NFS for mounting so not much support is required. I have not had any issues to warrant a request with AWS support.

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Chris Saenz

Lead System Engineer

Azusa Pacific UniversityHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees

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IBM Cloud Virtual Servers 7.5

Based on 2 answers

It is adequate, but you need to be ready to argue your point - which is fair enough, I suppose, but being given the opposite of the benefit of the doubt every time does not necessarily result in an enjoyable user experience.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Utilities Company, 11-50 employees

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Alternatives Considered

EFS is essentially an NFS export offering, just simplified and accessible through all the automation and scalability that AWS offers. It provides high-available replicated data in multiple AZs with is akin to something like DRBD, but without having to manage the layer of software that does replication and keeps track of roles.

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Chris Saenz

Lead System Engineer

Azusa Pacific UniversityHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees

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I have had a dedicated server for 20 years. The last company, Softlayer, got bought out by IBM, and the transition has been a very good one. When I started using IBM for all my hosting solutions, I became a really big fan. Everything has been a user-friendly experience. The products have been really easy to work with.

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Jeffrey Lange

Owner / Creative Director / Developer / Digital Marketing

FanbuildInformation Technology & Services, 1-10 employees

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Return on Investment

EFS has made managing NFS file exports easier with less administration.

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Chris Saenz

Lead System Engineer

Azusa Pacific UniversityHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees

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Freed up our team to focus on working on our own products and not having to worry about maintaining and patching servers.
On-demand procurement allowed our team to quickly spin up servers as needed and shut them down when work is done.

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Qing Miao

Program Manager

AppFusionsComputer Software, 1-10 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

—

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

Yes

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

Optional

IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Editions & Modules

Edition

IBM Cloud Public Virtual Servers	starting at $0.038¹
IBM Cloud Dedicated Virtual Servers	starting at $0.22¹
IBM Cloud Public Virtual Servers	starting at $25.21²
IBM Cloud Dedicated Virtual Servers	starting at $149.00²
IBM Cloud Transient Virtual Servers	starting at $0.01³
IBM Cloud Reserved Virtual Servers	starting at $0.02³
IBM Cloud Reserved Virtual Servers	starting at $13.27⁴

per hour
per month
per hour
per month

Additional Pricing Details

IBM Cloud virtual servers include 250 GB of outbound public bandwidth, unmetered inbound public bandwidth, and unmetered private and management network bandwidth.

Rating Summary

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)

IBM Cloud Virtual Servers

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)

IBM Cloud Virtual Servers

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)

IBM Cloud Virtual Servers

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) vs IBM Cloud Virtual Servers