Likelihood to Recommend 1) If you are gathering lots of data from many different points and transforming that data into something customized, and you need it secure yet accessible, this is a great option. 2) If you are looking for a platform and not just a service provider, this would be a great option. As a platform, there is a one-stop-shop feeling that gets you some better customer service and performance. But it also locks you into one provider, so don’t jump in if you feel like you’ll want a lot of flexibility. 3) Building or running VMware is really what this platform is all about. If you’re creating an app drawing from some complex data/sources, it’s an easier go with this tool than most others.
Read full review Well suited - 1) To Install required Products/Software in a middleware technology 2) Customize the file system and size of the storage 3) Install required monitoring tools like Tivoli, Splunk, etc. Less appropriate - 1) Maybe for SAAS products that do not require all of the installations.
Read full review Pros It fills a niche that was needed before we as a company fully embraced the cloud with Azure. It was a great introduction to the cloud and there are some features I wish were more readily available with some of our Azure tools. Staying on top of your expenses is much harder without the transparency Hitachi provides. It allows the small team managing it to simplify cloud operations using prebuilt computing and storage templates. Very easy to monitor, manage and optimize cloud operations. Pre-Engineered, turnkey solutions with prebuilt services make it quick and easy to select the service needed for each app. With many different suppliers, we cater to many different connectors. Read full review Performance - the servers perform really well, even under stress. We have some long build processes running concurrently, and the server [can] serve other applications without any problems. Secure - for the most part, the servers are very secure and IBM provides many tools to help [make] sure the servers stay that way. Highly Available - while we have experienced various downtimes and outages with other IBM Cloud offerings, so far, we have not experienced any with [IBM Cloud] Bare Metal Servers. Read full review Cons Their ability to offer a public cloud solution that feels like a private cloud solution is a great feature, but not one that is easily understood outside of someone using the tool. I think they need more training and marketing around what they can do for cloud-native development. I think they are lacking a solution to play in other playgrounds easily. Many of their offerings are better than what Azure provides, so I think there is room for them to leverage Azure size with customized, personalized features. They really need something big to set them apart from the larger players in this space. I think of Snowflake with their amazing pricing model and the “oops!” button that undoes serious accidental deletes. Something like that would grow the user base and make it a major player. Read full review [In my experience, the] Customer Service Agreement (CSA) has many gaps in terms of responsibility with Bare Metal Servers. [I believe] IBM should be deploying servers and firmware updating all components before providing them to customers to prevent component failure. [I feel] IBM needs lots of improvement with their legacy VPN to access IMPI management tools. The level of security of it is unparalleled when it works. Having access to KVM / IPMI is critical for any business, and when their VPN service is not working. [From my experiences,] IBM deployed faulty hardware, or failed to update firmware per Lenovo notices, only to pass off blame. [In my opinion,] IBM's General Counsel and Paralegal held our data/company hostage when components failed, [in my experience] to IBM "gross negligence" (in their words), only to release it if we were to limit damages to $1,000. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Due to cloud computing taking over the market, I have moved to cloud computing. It is so much easier upgrading or downsizing a virtual server on the cloud vs bare metal. I find it way more convenient on cloud computing. The provisioning takes way too long for bare metal servers.
Read full review Support Rating Great responsiveness and detailed know-how from the team. Self Explanatory and good resources on the Web to resolve issues. Good communication on issues via email. Good response times on issues which arise and where we have received support from the IBM support team. We believe that IBM is a great Partner to base our IT applications and we believe that a critical infrastructure like a cloud backend will be well served if we continue to base it on IBM.
Read full review Implementation Rating The implementation of this software took place as we planned. The performance time taken for full functionality was very reliable with positive results. The customer support team was the best team I have ever met in my career experience. They are always with timely responses when reached to offer any help.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Hitachi Enterprise Cloud is a pleasant surprise, offering better management and control of your cloud containers and VMware. It is a platform and contains all you need to get going, so there is great appeal in smaller companies and isolated divisions/departments in larger companies. If I were managing a small group with a specific endpoint I would no doubt choose a solution like this, but being a large corporation we tend to drive towards larger solutions with internal competencies to support those larger roll-outs.
Read full review The Best part of this IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers is performance and a very highly usable part is Security stuff. everyone needs to secure their data and work with a smoothly running app. for this reason I select this server rather than another one. I will use it in feature [definitely].
Read full review Return on Investment The positive pricing aspect has been with the rate card and compute pricing transparency, being better able to manage the budget. It is a small solution for us, so we are probably not realizing the potential savings we could get by rolling all our corporate cloud work into a single solution, but it is also good to keep multiple irons in the fire, so to speak. The implementation has done very well in a small, controlled atmosphere. So while the ROI may not have been as high as we’d like to see, the success of the project has made it valuable none the less. Read full review Future readiness--we have the ability to quickly respond and build custom demos for customers in a short timeframe. Savings on hardware--we have the ability to spin up large workloads to demonstrate to customers the performance of our tools and IBM Cloud. Read full review ScreenShots IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers Screenshots