VPC server on IBM Cloud usage review
We need some insurance enrollment applications with nearly 4K users once in a year for around 3 months and we find it extremely useful to …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPCFormerly IBM Cloud Virtual Servers
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Starting at $0.01 per hour
View PricingOverview
What is IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC?
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers are customizable, public or private, cloud-based servers available from IBM. User can launch applications and software across blended, hybrid environments as the servers integrate with all cloud models.
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At my organization, we use IBM Cloud Virtual Servers to address a variety of business problems. The product is very versatile and can be …
How IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC Differs From Its Competitors
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
As already stated our costs are reduced by 75% as the transient pricing enables us to dynamically re provision resources at will any time thereby reducing overall expenses
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
Sorry , we have not reached that level of usage, but are slowly moving towards that
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
As our compliance regulations require us to maintain the servers in our country itself , we find that IBM has servers in more than one location in India and so this helps us comply and also redundancy is possible for DRP policies as well and we are extremely satisfied
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
Through the spare capacity available the process of workloads balancing and Cloud storage management operations are smoothly operated without much cost and the security level on all data cross Cloud services is excellent. The IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC also enable easy configuration …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
Having the ability on guaranteed capacity it can easy and also helpful when it comes to handling multiple large projects data and also storage of any data size through Cloud services and very securely. Balancing different Cloud workloads is also effective and cost effective saving project time and …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
Through added data security level and the network isolation functionality the overall services quality from IBM Cloud Virtual Servers is productive. Compliance management and the effective data access control features enhances Cloud data accessibility security and the storage management operations …
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IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
With tje capabilities of all this IBM Cloud systems protecting business data across Cloud services and secure storage all data sizes on Cloud is very simple process. Servers performance management and easy access …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
I am not involved in the pricing off this but I do know the monthly pay as you use billing is cost effective in our environment. There are times when use is more beneficial over a period of weeks and other times not so much.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
New project rollouts when we have changed broker dealers in the financial services industry has made this highly benefical and efficient. We had a temporary need for high capacity and once the move was complete it was back to a normal mode.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
Security was and is a high priority in financial services. We need to have complete trust in the IBM service for this. Because our organization is small the auto assign feature was our method of choice. This freed up our staff for transitioning.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
This is the main reason we go for Virtual Cloud servers whenever we need it.
But nowadays there are other options with much better pricing providing the same functionality, so it is high time IBM reviews their pricing also to align with the market trend
But nowadays there are other options with much better pricing providing the same functionality, so it is high time IBM reviews their pricing also to align with the market trend
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
Not yet used, but may be we try in sometime later.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
We are only using transient VSI to reduce the cost. While IBM can reclaim the instance at any time, this almost never happens to us. A transient VSI would run for couple of weeks with no problems. It is also way cheaper compared to the on-demand instances. The only issue with IBM transient VSIs is …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
We didn't use reserved capacity as our main focus was allocating instances on the fly. While reserved instances can be low cost, transient instances have even lower costs and that is what we are using to expand the capacity of our data center on-demand while keeping the cost as low as possible.
Implementation Insights
It was very straight forward and the implementation went smoothly.
Examples of Exceptional Support
There was once instance when all traffic to one virtual server was blocked. The firewall configuration was not well set and the support team troubleshooted the problem with us and walked us through the steps to fix the issue.
IBM Cloud Support Resource Usage
Central Documentation and Learning Hub
IBM Cloud Docs
IBM Cloud product demos and tutorial videos
The documentation and Cloud Docs along with the demos and tutorials have helped a lot to get familiar with their new services and troubleshooting some of the issues we faced setting up the environment.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Pricing
We use the transient instances to expand our data center on-demand and that cut in the average cost definitely helped us reduce our running costs and increase our capacity in terms of running more instances.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Time Savings
I don’t know how much time was saved, but I know time was definitely saved
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Billing
Since we run transient instances on demand, the hourly rate is very beneficial to us as the instances get created and destroyed based on the available jobs. Thus, a monthly rate does not work for our model and only an hourly rate such as the one provided can work for our use case.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
We have a pretty regular load so don’t need this feature yet.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
Transient pricing allows us to use the capacity we need when we need it, without commitment in the future.
Examples of Exceptional Support
Cannot provide particular example, but is often that the support agent would put extra effort to really dog into your problem and point you to the right docs or solve the issue for you directly.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Pricing
We did indeed reduce cloud costs for all our deployments/project by about 15% which we were able to reallocate for further product improvements.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Time Savings
I don’t know how much time was saved, but I know time was definitely saved
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Billing
We have some automated test pipelines that do E2E integration test, including infrastructure provisioning. Hourly billing is a great fit that optimizes costs for this type of usages.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
The transient pricing model is amazingly helpful. It is very helpful to be able to set up simulations for testing and get them running, and then step away for a break or lunch and it was at a very competitive price. As a smaller business, I appreciate when we can spend less if we use less and …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
We have not yet used the more advanced settings for provisioning control, security, isolation on IBM Cloud Dedicated Virtual Servers.
Implementation Insights
Implementation went relatively smoothly. The implementation is slightly different and placement is either to a dedicated host or dedicated host group. If the placement for the classic virtual server instance is manual, then the VPC+ tools honors the placement and provisions the virtual server in …
Examples of Exceptional Support
We have not had to use a one-on-one support ticket, per say, but we have used public forums to help troubleshoot common issues. In that sense, other users have been more helpful than customer service technicians or representatives.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Pricing
Lowering costs of course is always a plus for any business, so the pay-by-the-hour model that IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC operates on is very helpful for keeping costs to a minimum and allowing us to divert those funds elsewhere.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Billing
We only pay for the time that we're actually utilizing IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC, meaning that we're not draining money or essentially throwing it out the window when we're paying for time that we're not using the product. The pay-by-the-hour model is very helpful for keeping costs to a …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
Before I was spending a lot more with hosting on dedicated servers before switching to virtual servers. I love the pricing. It's really easy to budget for my hosting needs. I love having hourly and monthly usage and options. The hourly is great for deploying projects in development modes that do …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
I think it's great to be able to select the location of the server or multiple servers since some projects might be focused on a particular region.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Pricing
ROI is an extremely important factor with cloud computing. It's important to identify the right service for your products. Being able to add or remove services based on the server's needs makes it more cost efficient for any organization. Since I do pay-as-you-go services it's very beneficial to …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Time Savings
I don’t know how much time was saved, but I know time was definitely saved
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Billing
As mentioned in my earlier comment, it's important to use the hourly flexibility to your advantage. Use resources when they are needed and reduce them when they are not. If you run a business that is more used during the winter time, you can reduce your server resources to save money throughout …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Management
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IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Availability
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IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
Our organization used to have a traditional dedicated server but the costs of running a server for the workplace reduced drastically once we started utilizing the IBM Cloud Virtual Servers. Every minute cost that you can reduce for your business by buying new Investment is always the smarter plan …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
Surprisingly we have utilized the complete 20 virtual machines and since it has the reserved computing capacity it did not slow down or crash.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
We have not used around the world services since we don't deal internationally in our workplace.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
Transient pricing, in general, was advantageous for us when need to run flexible workloads on spare capacity since it provides a cost-effective approach to leverage spare capacity in the cloud. This can help us save money and decrease waste while still providing the computer resources our …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
We improved our performance and dependability by using dedicated hosting. Our organization avoids the possible performance degradation and resource congestion that can occur with shared hosts by using dedicated hosts, resulting in enhanced application performance and reliability. Furthermore, …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
The pricing has made a substantial difference between several other providers. Once fully optimized we were able to actually run MORE servers due to the cost savings, as it becomes a break-even in the previous price we were paying for a lesser amount of servers. Although we’re still in the testing …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
We have not used this feature, as we’re still in the testing phase of >10 servers. We will slowly increase/move servers in the next couple of months, but I do hope to manage to try this feature out in the near future. However, there are many other features that are provided, that are still …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
If it fits your needs, then yes it is cheaper to run your Z servers on the IBM cloud. If you just need to run regular linux/windows vms on x86, you can compare with the competirors for better pricing.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
Sorry, have not used it, but it is a good feature.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
This is useful in some scenarios, although more expensive. It is important if you need extra security or isolation.
IBM Cloud Portfolio
IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions
IBM Cloud Object Storage
IBM Db2 on Cloud
We have used IBM hardware and software for years. Although IBM is a little behind in the cloud world, it has some unique features like running Linux on Z platform.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
The biggest impact that transient pricing has had on our organization is the ability to run workloads on spare capacity at a fraction of the cost of dedicated servers. This has allowed us to save money on our overall cloud budget and has also allowed us to use more of our spare capacity than we …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
The impact of reserved computes capacity on overall operations has been significant. We have seen an increase in the overall stability of our systems. In addition, we have seen a reduction in the time it takes to provision new virtual machines, and an increase in the overall efficiency of our …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
Transient pricing has had no impact as we were unable to successfully achieve a working implementation of IBM Cloud Virtual Servers.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
We did not make use of this service to this scale.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
We've never had onsite/hosted servers, so this is the same as any cloud service provider.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
Transient pricing enabled organizations to run flexible workloads on spare capacity. It was a fraction of the cost of dedicated servers. The impact that transient pricing had on my organization is that it allowed management to be more flexible with the resources. By being able to use IBM Cloud …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
This service allowed organizations to reserve virtual servers in advance so that they will be able to run when the users need them. Also, this increases the efficiency of operations because VMs can be up even before requests for their use are made.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
There has been a positive effect on overall operations. Dedicated virtual servers have been a feature that all of our clients could benefit from. In the event that a dedicated host is not available for their use, we can simply say to them, “Hey, what if we provisioned you on a dedicated server …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
It's nice that we only get charged for what we use, the pricing structure is straightforward and it's great that it's built-in and we don't have to go through reallocations in order to get more or less capacity. This makes it easy for us to bring on or obsolete test environments quickly and …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
It's made it a lot easier to have guaranteed resources if we anticipate that we'll need extra environments for periods of extra testing or if other teams need dedicated compute resources that are hard to acquire elsewhere.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
We haven't used dedicated virtual servers yet in our organization.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
Instead of having its own on-premises servers, having this cloud as a hybrid will help reduce costs. The transitional costs that IBM offers for virtual workers in the cloud permits our association to build up extra information is just a small portion of the expense. This is a helpful choice that …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
Virtual servers have a bit less power than Sysadmin, and to introduce OS is an undertaking. IBM provides better security, which is not common among other options.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
We haven't used the transient virtual server offering, but it should save a lot in costs.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
We most often pick a region to spin up in but that is all. We have not chosen a specific host before.
IBM Cloud Portfolio
IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
IBM Cloud Container Registry
IBM Cloud Object Storage
IBM Cloud Databases
When using the various IBM Cloud products, we have found that they have the greatest return on investment when they are being used in conjunction with each other. We use several of the IBM Cloud …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
I like this feature because it allows us to spend on what we need at the time. That means that we pay on an as per our need. Their pricing structure is easy to understand. For smaller businesses, IBM transient pricing is very helpful.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
We have used IBM Cloud, its virtual servers, and approximately many IBM services and some microservices. We have used it for web application environments and job queues. It was easy to set up. It is helpful for us for the application enhancements.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
Transient pricing for IBM Cloud Virtual Servers are very helpful it helps to set up our testing environment in the IBM cloud space, the pricing is very clean and transparent which is predictable this allows [scaling] quickly when we need extra resources at peak time
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
we aren't aware of this, if so it will be a great option to be considered.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
Transient pricing is good easy to calculate and make decisions on which servers can be used and performed. We mostly calculate on bulk servers so it's easy for us to choose between cloud vendors.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Reserved Servers
We mostly use for high sensitive customers in order to avoid delay of the instance. We had used this many times during the application enhancements so there should be no delay if we want the instance type immediately.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
We have used dedicated hosts in the IBM cloud we haven't used auto-assign placement dedicated hosts. As we add our own security rules and configs to our servers. Overall experience is great.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
This has literally reduced the cost of the overall setup as we were paying a lot on the DC pricing and further AMC values where clients used to encounter the high outages and some places where the point in time recovery was almost not-possible. The cost has reduced to almost 60% of what we used to …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Dedicated Hosts
This has helped customers to easily have a better understanding of the security setup and as I mentioned the high availability is better due to the feature IBM cloud used to auto-assign the placement for the impacted hosts and thus helps in reduction in downtime and engineers were able to easily …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing
Power Virtual Server is charged per hour so it is possible to reserve the machine only for short time. Once the machine is reserved is not possible to change the amount of memory, is static.
Awards
Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards
Popular Features
- Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime (81)8.383%
- Monitoring tools (84)8.383%
- Pre-defined machine images (78)8.383%
- Operating system support (84)8.282%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers (dedicated host)
starting at $0.22
Cloud
per hour
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers (dedicated host)
starting at $149.00
Cloud
per month
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers (multi-tenant)
starting at $0.038
Cloud
per hour
Entry-level set up fee?
- Setup fee optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://cloud.ibm.com/vpc…
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Features
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
IaaS provides the basic building blocks for an IT infrastructure like servers, storage, and networking, in an on-demand model over the Internet
8.3
Avg 8.1
- 8.3Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime(81) Ratings
The service uptime as a percentage defined in the SLA
- 8.2Dynamic scaling(76) Ratings
Ease of scaling up or down in response to customer needs
- 8.3Elastic load balancing(64) Ratings
Automatic balancing and distribution of resources across multiple virtual computers
- 7.8Pre-configured templates(73) Ratings
Pre-defined templates for virtual machines
- 8.3Monitoring tools(84) Ratings
Monitoring tools provide alerts when problems are detected
- 8.3Pre-defined machine images(78) Ratings
Range of different server configurations available
- 8.2Operating system support(84) Ratings
Range of operating systems available as pre-configured images
- 8.9Security controls(78) Ratings
Compliance with security protocols like SSL and AES
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC?
IBM Cloud® Virtual Server for VPC offers
fast-provisioning compute capacity—also known as virtual machines—with high network speeds and secure, software-defined networking
resources available on the IBM Cloud. Built on IBM Cloud Virtual Private
Cloud (VPC) and featuring 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon®
processors, this developer-friendly infrastructure helps drive modern
workloads faster and easier with pre-set instance profiles, rapid
deployment and private network control in an agile public cloud
environment. Choose multi-tenant or dedicated, add GPUs, and it is pay-as-you-use by the hour.
IBM Cloud virtual server environments deliver cloud-native solutions that work across public, private and hybrid
deployments. Boasting cost-savings, control, and visibility that is needed with a variety of flexible provisioning and pricing options, including single and multi-tenant environments, hourly and monthly pricing, reserved capacity terms and spot billing. Its elastic infrastructure, globally distributed data centers and premium services aim to bring data to life no matter where it resides.
Smart provisioning
Customize with a variety of virtual server instances and billing options. Rapidly
scale up or down, on-demand. Stay open with no vendor lock-ins, and reply on
complete integration with new and traditional architectures.
Highly distributed
Access a globally distributed network of modern data centers with built in high-availability
and security, inbound public bandwidth and high-speed private network options, public and
private network ports, fast data ingest offerings, geographically redundant
DNS, and dual-stack IP capabilities.
Advanced essentials
Used to build blended hybrid environments
with more predictability and confidence, and to create new solutions that interact with existing infrastructure and applications. A variety of network choices are available with AI solutions designed to put data to work.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC Features
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Features
- Supported: Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime
- Supported: Dynamic scaling
- Supported: Elastic load balancing
- Supported: Pre-configured templates
- Supported: Monitoring tools
- Supported: Pre-defined machine images
- Supported: Operating system support
- Supported: Security controls
Additional Features
- Supported: Remote management
- Supported: Virtual GPU support
- Supported: Suspend billing
- Supported: Flexible instance options
- Supported: Spot pricing
- Supported: Placement groups for high-availability
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC Integrations
- VMware ESXi
- VMware vSphere on IBM Cloud
- McAfee Total Protection (discontinued)
- Microsoft SQL Server
- MongoDB
- Veeam Data Platform
- FreeBSD
- NetApp ONTAP Select
- OSNEXUS QuantaStor
- Virtuozzo Application Platform
- Ubuntu
- CENT OS
- CloudLinux
- Debian
- Microsoft
- Red Had
- Vyatta Virtual Router Appliance
- Citrix XenServer
- Microsoft Hyper-V
- APF Software Firewall
- Microsoft Windows Firewall
- Basho Riak
- IBM Cloud Analytics
- My SQL
- Fantastico
- RVSkin
- Softaculous
- R1Soft Server Backup Manager Enterprise
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC Competitors
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Linux |
| Mobile Application | Mobile Web |
Frequently Asked Questions
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers are customizable, public or private, cloud-based servers available from IBM. User can launch applications and software across blended, hybrid environments as the servers integrate with all cloud models.
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Google Compute Engine, and Azure Virtual Machines are common alternatives for IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC.
Reviewers rate Security controls highest, with a score of 8.9.
The most common users of IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(119)Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-5 of 5)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
February 06, 2024
Reliable with simple APIs
Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology
Research Company, 10,001+ employees
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers are being used as a pilot project to extend our data center used by researchers. In other words, extra jobs that cannot be fulfilled by our data center will be offloaded to IBM VSI. Currently it is being used by one department but it will be used by the entire university once the solution is stable and goes into production.
- Fast to spawn
- Easy to configure using SoftLayer APIs
- Many flavors available
- Relatively cheap, especially for the transient instances
- 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)
The API for creating and destroying IBM VSIs is very simple compared to AWS APIs, for example. It required less configuration and it is easy to get the VSI to communicate with one another. IBM VSIs are well suited for situations where you need to control them programmatically using the SoftLayer APIs and create a cluster of nodes that communicate together with minimum configuration.
57.5%
5.8
- Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime
- 100%10.0
- Dynamic scaling
- 60%6.0
- Elastic load balancing
- N/AN/A
- Pre-configured templates
- 60%6.0
- Monitoring tools
- 60%6.0
- Pre-defined machine images
- 20%2.0
- Operating system support
- 100%10.0
- Security controls
- 60%6.0
- It will reduce the time researchers have to wait to be assigned computing respources
- It will reduce the current operational costs
- It provides "infinite" increase of our data center
We are only using transient VSI to reduce the cost. While IBM can reclaim the instance at any time, this almost never happens to us. A transient VSI would run for couple of weeks with no problems. It is also way cheaper compared to the on-demand instances. The only issue with IBM transient VSIs is that they are not resizable (CPU, Mem).
We didn't use reserved capacity as our main focus was allocating instances on the fly. While reserved instances can be low cost, transient instances have even lower costs and that is what we are using to expand the capacity of our data center on-demand while keeping the cost as low as possible.
We did not use dedicated instances.
- IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
The services are reliable and reasonably priced. IBM products are used to augment our data center capabilities and meet all researchers' needs.
- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
IBM APIs are easier to use to create, configure, and destroy VSIs.
It was very straight forward and the implementation went smoothly.
No
Advanced
It was part of the subscription package we received when our organization signed up for IBM Cloud access.
There was once instance when all traffic to one virtual server was blocked. The firewall configuration was not well set and the support team troubleshooted the problem with us and walked us through the steps to fix the issue.
- Central Documentation and Learning Hub
- IBM Cloud Docs
- IBM Cloud product demos and tutorial videos
The documentation and Cloud Docs along with the demos and tutorials have helped a lot to get familiar with their new services and troubleshooting some of the issues we faced setting up the environment.
They are knowledgeable, highly technical and have always resolved the issues I contacted them about. The only con is that they can take a bit long (couple of hours) to respond. I live chat option would be great.
We use the transient instances to expand our data center on-demand and that cut in the average cost definitely helped us reduce our running costs and increase our capacity in terms of running more instances.
I don’t know how much time was saved, but I know time was definitely saved
Since we run transient instances on demand, the hourly rate is very beneficial to us as the instances get created and destroyed based on the available jobs. Thus, a monthly rate does not work for our model and only an hourly rate such as the one provided can work for our use case.
NA
NA
5
Project management, technical leads, senior analytics developers.
4
Computer science background with specializations in data analytics, cloud computing, networks, and data security.
- Fast on-demand deployment
- Test deployments
- Environment testing
- CI/CD runners
- Sample web applications
- Development sandbox
It has a flexible and affordable pricing, easy to configure and manage. It is easy to spawn one or multiple instances and have them up and running in no time.
Verified User
Manager in Information Technology
Insurance Company, 11-50 employees
We use IBM Cloud Virtual Servers to host different web-based systems. It is used across the whole organization and we deploy solutions for customers/third parties on it. We mostly use virtual servers and also utilize some of the IBM Watson services.
- API for creating/managing services
- Datacenter location variety
- Risk of total virtual server loss due to failures
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers is well suited for deployment of public-facing systems that may need to scale/increase capacity at any point in time.
71.25%
7.1
- Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime
- 50%5.0
- Dynamic scaling
- 90%9.0
- Elastic load balancing
- 90%9.0
- Pre-configured templates
- 50%5.0
- Monitoring tools
- 50%5.0
- Pre-defined machine images
- 70%7.0
- Operating system support
- 80%8.0
- Security controls
- 90%9.0
- Decreased cost of cloud infrastructure compared to other providers.
Transient pricing allows us to use the capacity we need when we need it, without commitment in the future.
We have not used instance reservations.
We have not used dedicated hosts.
- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Microsoft Azure
We mostly use IBM Cloud Virtual Servers. IBM provides a better choice of locations, easy to use interface and APIs for management, and better pricing compared to similar providers.
- IBM Cloud Foundry
- IBM Cloud Databases
Besides hosting in-house developed systems, we use some off the shelf softwares for which turned out to be good candidates for cloud foundry + managed databases in terms of cost efficiency.
It went as expected without any unforeseen issues.
No
Basic (free)
We have in-house competency that helps us solve most of the issues we encounter.
Cannot provide particular example, but is often that the support agent would put extra effort to really dog into your problem and point you to the right docs or solve the issue for you directly.
Support access is easier compared to other cloud providers, but sometimes it takes a lot of time to reach the right person even if you put effort to describe the issue in the beginning.
We did indeed reduce cloud costs for all our deployments/project by about 15% which we were able to reallocate for further product improvements.
I don’t know how much time was saved, but I know time was definitely saved
We have some automated test pipelines that do E2E integration test, including infrastructure provisioning. Hourly billing is a great fit that optimizes costs for this type of usages.
N/A
N/A
10
Technical staff, developers, devops.
3
Linux administration, networking expertise, cloud expertise.
- hosting production systems
- hosting internal development environments
- access to multiple datacenters in different countries/geo areas
- convert some of the on-premise workstations to cloud for more flexibility
We have expertise, good knowledge and know what to expect from IBM cloud.
No
- Cloud Solutions
- Scalability
- Ease of Use
Datacenter availability in some of the markets we work on.
Would not really change, IBM works good for us.
- can’t think of any
- No Training
Yes, very easy, no training required.
It worked well for us in the beginning, it works well for us when we have more instances.
Always available when you need an instance.
Most of the instances work on hypervisors with good processors, but not all of them.
- on premise networking equipment
Relatively easy, we had to connect our on premise networking equipment to the IBM virtual cloud networks.
- no
N/A
- File import/export
- Single Signon
- API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
N/A
As expected, it is easy to integrate VPC with any other service.
Nothing special or IBM specific.
No
Verified User
Manager in Marketing
Real Estate Company, 11-50 employees
We mainly rely on IBM Cloud Virtual Services as a webs server and DNS for our client's websites, as well as our own, main company website. We also rely heavily on the Virtual Server for testing new features and finding bugs before deployment.
- Manageable control of individual servers and DNS settings
- Creating different profiles or identities so users can work on separate projects
- The IBM Cost Calculator is a nice feature that shows the people at IBM have tried hard to think of extra features that B2B customers could benefit from
- Developer-friendly infrastructure
- We have not had a great experience with support. Other devs will know that it can be very nerve-racking to have clients bombarding you because of an issue that you need support's help to fix.
- Documentation could definitely be helped. Maybe a better onboarding guide?
- Dashboard is a bit slow and clunky
It's great for testing new projects and features and ensuring that the finished product (prior to deployment, of course!) is smooth, ready to go, and free of bugs. I also appreciate that you can set up different identities because it allows our users to log in and out as different people when necessary, for testing purposes. We appreciate the developer-friendly infrastructure as well.
77.14285714285714%
7.7
- Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime
- 80%8.0
- Dynamic scaling
- 20%2.0
- Elastic load balancing
- 80%8.0
- Pre-configured templates
- 100%10.0
- Monitoring tools
- 100%10.0
- Operating system support
- 60%6.0
- Security controls
- 100%10.0
- As far as ROI goes, I think it's been a great investment. Our deployments are smoother and our clients are happy with their websites' functionality.
- As I mentioned before, getting in touch with Support can be a headache and so if you have angry clientele like we do, waiting on Support to get back to you (while you wait as the unfortunate middle man) can be frustrating.
- Pay-as-you-use by the hour is useful for keeping costs low.
The transient pricing model is amazingly helpful. It is very helpful to be able to set up simulations for testing and get them running, and then step away for a break or lunch and it was at a very competitive price. As a smaller business, I appreciate when we can spend less if we use less and that's exactly how this pricing model is set up. Win-win! The "pay-as-you-use by the hour" model is appreciated.
We have not had to use this capability yet.
We have not yet used the more advanced settings for provisioning control, security, isolation on IBM Cloud Dedicated Virtual Servers.
This is our first foray into the Virtual Servers world, so I cannot give an accurate comparison to any other services yet.
We do not currently use multiple IBM portfolio products together.
Implementation went relatively smoothly. The implementation is slightly different and placement is either to a dedicated host or dedicated host group. If the placement for the classic virtual server instance is manual, then the VPC+ tools honors the placement and provisions the virtual server in IBM Cloud VPC as such.
I don’t know
We did not use IBM professional services to implement IBM Cloud Virtual Servers.
Advanced
We wanted to try out the system before fully committing to a Premium subscription. We're at the Advanced level currently, and may upgrade in the future if the system continues to help aid us in our business goals.
We have not had to use a one-on-one support ticket, per say, but we have used public forums to help troubleshoot common issues. In that sense, other users have been more helpful than customer service technicians or representatives.
- Chat with Watson
The IBM Watson Assistant uses natural language understanding (NLU) to better understand our customers in context so that we can deliver fast, consistent, and accurate solutions without dedicating human capital (and money) to this section of our virtual servers. We are able to seamlessly integrate with CRM and back-end systems that our business needs to deliver true customer self-service and full functionality. We are also able to track progress across the entire buyer’s journey to drive real outcomes and ensure our customers’ needs are met.
We have not utilized direct support from a customer support team at IBM; instead we rely on public forums for answers and troubleshooting.
Lowering costs of course is always a plus for any business, so the pay-by-the-hour model that IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC operates on is very helpful for keeping costs to a minimum and allowing us to divert those funds elsewhere.
9-12 hours time saved per person per week
We only pay for the time that we're actually utilizing IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC, meaning that we're not draining money or essentially throwing it out the window when we're paying for time that we're not using the product. The pay-by-the-hour model is very helpful for keeping costs to a minimum.
No
April 20, 2020
Great product that could use some simpler VS setups
Verified User
Strategist in Finance and Accounting
Financial Services Company, 10,001+ employees
It is mainly being used in data science and actuarial departments for heavyweight modelling where either high memory or large CPU requirements (or both) are required. Also as we explore further the use of machine learning and AI, the possibility to access very large GPU machines is appealing as this dramatically increases efficiency in a cost effective way.
- A broad range of setup options, so we can choose the right GPU/CPU/RAM for the run at hand, which makes things more cost-effective.
- Data security is important to us, being able to choose a server location helps with giving assurance that the data will be looked after appropriately.
- The cloud site is extremely well set out, it is very easy to quickly spec out and cost a VM.
- When launching a VSI it's not always obvious how far progressed or how long we will have to wait.
- It's also not 100% clear when billing starts and stops.
- It would be great to have a few "works out of the box" configurations, with sensible defaults so that inexperienced users can quickly launch a windows instance to run a heavy model without having to worry about getting config exactly right. "too many options".
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers are well suited if you know what you're doing or have used a cloud service before. It is not well suited if you are new to doing this or don't have a coach nearby.
87.5%
8.8
- Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime
- 100%10.0
- Dynamic scaling
- 90%9.0
- Elastic load balancing
- 90%9.0
- Pre-configured templates
- 60%6.0
- Monitoring tools
- 80%8.0
- Pre-defined machine images
- 80%8.0
- Operating system support
- 100%10.0
- Security controls
- 100%10.0
- With access to large machines, we've been able to increase our modelling ambitions to include more complex assessment of the risk in the business.
- The ability to access large GPUs has singificantly cut the time it has taken us to train very complex AI systems
We don't use it, as our workloads tend to be time-critical and so we require on-demand dedicated servers.
During the last 6 weeks we have been required by our regulator to run our very large solvency models on a much more regular basis than normal. Being able to access reserved capacity has given us the flexibility to achieve that and impress our leadership team in the process! Which is a win for everyone
We have a very active and engaged IT security team and regularly need to process sensitive data. Being able to carefully control this aspect of hosting has made it much easier to get ITSec comfortable with using IBM Cloud VSIs
IBM, AWS and Google Cloud are all market leaders for a reason and in many ways there isn't much to choose - aside from personal preference of purchasing managers. In our case it was familiarity and confidence from having used IBM CVS on previous projects, the security/data considerations and wide ranges of configurations that swung the decision.
For our more experience engineers the process was very smooth. There was an element of "lost in the vastness of choice" for our less experienced engineers which led to us setting up some standard configs to limit their choices. In general however the implementation is pretty good and easy to set up and monitor.
No
Premium
The processes we use CVS for are somewhat mission critical - as such spending that bit more on support was justified
In our case the best example of excellent support is in the excellent, detailled documentation that exists for everyone! Don't underestimate the time and effort it takes to design and put that all together!
- Central Documentation and Learning Hub
- IBM Cloud Docs
- Ability to check uptime status for IBM Cloud products
- Access to IBM and Developer communities through Stack Overflow or GitHub
Yes, in general by removing the guess work from set up, implementation and monitoring.
The combination of the excellent documentation and knowing that we have access to a first-rate, responsive support team...
Whilst the 14% decrease was welcome, the main benefit was compared to hosting the hardware ourselves - the cost of which was very high given that we didn't fully utilise the processing power. Also as machine learning/AI has become more and more important to us - being able to access cutting edge GPUs cost-effectively (in an ever changing world!) has been very valuable too!
5-8 hours time saved per person per week
A good example of the flexibility/efficiency of hourly billing comes from urgent requests to run our very very large regulatory solvency model over the last few weeks (COVID19) to provide data to our regulator to assure them that we remain solvent. Whilst running the resources required are significant, but once finished the fact that we can "turn off" the resource means we really are only using it whilst needed.
Actuarial modelling and calibration
Data science
Investment/asset management
Data science
Investment/asset management
3
The internal support are basically passionate users, with massive hearts who willingly add to their busy workload by supporting others!
- Rapid scale up of processing resources to meet regulatory reporting requirements
- Very large RAM machines for large in-memory calculations (for example nested stochastic simulations)
- Large GPU machines for rapid training of complex ML/AI models
- A convincing Chatbot!!
It's hard to imagine not renewing having spent so much time setting up our infrastructure to utilise the CVS
November 13, 2019
If you have a need for high IOPS, the IBM cloud is probably your most cost-effective option
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Utilities Company, 11-50 employees
All of our servers are on the cloud, and that is IBM's cloud. As of today, we have 102 virtual servers, along with the associated required storage. In our case, storage is our largest cloud investment since our business is to host a data-crunching application to help our clients and utilities, make sense and act upon their customers' incoming smart meter data.
- Storage that provides high IOPS at a cost-effective rate. We evaluated other offerings this summer, in particular, AWS and Microsoft, and their high-IOPS disks were more expensive than IBM's.
- Automated deployment of new virtual servers and their storage is simplified by an API which we leverage using Ansible.
- In our tier, support is timely.
- Billing is complicated and unclear. It can be difficult to determine exactly how much each instance costs, and grouping them is also difficult (we need to charge different machines to different internal departments, and while we have resorted to using labels in the server names, we are not able to do that with storage).
- Their firewall options are not user-friendly nor very cost-effective. We use their Vyatta offering and, though it is an operating system rooted in free software, it is expensive. It is difficult to manage as well as its mgmt is done exclusively via a hard-to-learn text-only hierarchical configuration.
Well suited: Environments with a high volume of storage-intensive processes which require high IOPS disks. Less appropriate: If bare metal servers are required, they can be expensive. Also, operations that require constant networking changes might find easier ways to do it.
35%
3.5
- Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime
- 90%9.0
- Dynamic scaling
- N/AN/A
- Elastic load balancing
- N/AN/A
- Pre-configured templates
- N/AN/A
- Monitoring tools
- 30%3.0
- Pre-defined machine images
- 60%6.0
- Operating system support
- 80%8.0
- Security controls
- 20%2.0
- Positive: High IOPS storage is quite cost effective.
The complexity of our application has prevented us from being able to split it off into bite-sized applets that could perform data crunching on servers without a guaranteed uptime. This is unlikely to change in the near future.
This is probably something we would be interested in if we were able to better understand its potential benefits and pitfalls.
- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
Amazon's high IOPS storage devices are more expensive than the ones on the IBM cloud, per singular IOPS (input/output operation per second) so it makes much more sense for us to stick with IBM even if the other services that amazon offers are somewhat less costly, all things considered.
Yes
Yes
Unfortunately, it wasn't. The bug resulted in our losing data, and it took much, much back and forth just to get their support team to admit the issue was caused by their side. In the end, our data was irretrievably lost, our project was delayed as a result, and the bug is still present. Only now, we know how to work around it and avoid it.
Sorry but, no. Their support is adequate at best.
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.