IBM Cloud Foundry (discontinued)

IBM Cloud Foundry was a managed cloud Application Platforms (Platform-as-a-Service, or PaaS) offering that enabled enterprise software teams to build, deploy, scale, and manage cloud-native applications on IBM Cloud. Built on the open-source Cloud Foundry platform, the service provided automated runtime environments, container orchestration, and direct integration with IBM Cloud services, including artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics, and Internet of Things (IoT) tools. IBM officially retired IBM Cloud Foundry on June 1, 2023, and the service is now obsolete.

Platform Architecture & Public Cloud Runtime

IBM Cloud Foundry abstracted underlying infrastructure management, allowing developers to deploy application code via standard buildpacks for Node.js, Java, Python, Ruby, Go, PHP, and custom runtimes. The platform provided automated horizontal application scaling, health monitoring, load balancing, and secure routing across multi-tenant public cloud regions.

Cloud Foundry Enterprise Environment (CFEE)

For organizations requiring isolated single-tenant deployments, IBM offered Cloud Foundry Enterprise Environment (CFEE). CFEE executed self-managed Cloud Foundry control planes directly on top of the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service (IKS), combining container orchestration with automated application lifecycle tools to deploy isolated enterprise workloads.

Migration Path & Platform Status

IBM announced the deprecation of IBM Cloud Foundry on May 31, 2022. New application creation was disabled on November 30, 2022, and the public IBM Cloud Foundry platform reached official End of Support (EOS) on June 1, 2023, at which point all active application runtime instances were permanently deprovisioned and deleted. IBM Cloud Foundry Enterprise Environment (CFEE) reached End of Support earlier, on April 30, 2022. IBM directed enterprise workloads to migrate to alternative IBM compute services, including IBM Cloud Code Engine (serverless container platform), IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, or Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud. The open-source Cloud Foundry project continues to operate independently under the Cloud Foundry Foundation.