One of the few ways to get out emails in an economical way
Updated March 24, 2023
One of the few ways to get out emails in an economical way
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
This is our main server that our company uses to provide services to our libraries. It is being used as a website, email server, database, and mobile app server. The email serving part is unique to cloud servers. Most other major cloud providers (Google, AWS) don't allow creating email servers on their virtual servers. This is a key issue for us since we send email to library patrons to help them keep track their library circulations.
- An email server is allowed, and in particular, on port 25.
- Able to create a backup server and power it off until needed.
- Reasonably priced compared to the other major cloud services.
- Has lots of different locations to choose from around the world.
- Don't know if this is possible, but I'd like to make a snapshot of my current server for backup purposes. Unfortunately a snapshot takes too long (too many hours), and our server can't be off for more than a few hours at a time.
- Not be charged if the server is turned off. Other companies (e.g. Microsoft Azure) does not charge if server if not actually on. I do realize that IBM only charges 25% of the normal fee but I think that’s still too high.
- It has kept our small business going over 20 years at a reasonable cost. And allowed us to add more CPU power as we grew. So we weren't too concerned about having to change to a different platform or vendor as our list of libraries grew.
We have a pretty regular load so don’t need this feature yet.
Neither of those servers allows for creating an email server that can send out on port 25. IBM is easier to set-up than Amazon. And perhaps a little easier than Google. Also IBM can handle domain names for .com and .net. And changes made to their IP addresses take affect fairly quickly.
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC Feature Ratings
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Good followup Problems get solved No escalation required Support understands my problem | None |
Yes - I had problems with one provisioning and got a response that was ok but still didn’t resolve so I just started a new provisioning on at a location.