Item: IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Rating: 6
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use IBM Cloud Virtual Servers, called also VSI (Virtual Server Instance), in various ways:

Some services for our customers (e.g. mail server, web server, DNS).

Some internal services, that for various reasons, we prefer to keep separate from the main infrastructure.

Backup server (with Veeam) for our bare metal-based infrastructure.

We chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers to have VMs immediately ready and scalable at will. We also find it valuable to have licenses (eg Microsoft Windows and Veeam) with a monthly fee, without worrying about contracts, maintenance, and renewals.

Pros and Cons

Scalability
Clear pricing

KVM
Networking
Firewall
Stability
Performance

Return on Investment

Pros: datacenter with various industrial certifications.
Cons: poor performance.

IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Transient Pricing

This is really a plus: IBM Cloud pricing is very clear and predictable with simple calculators. The ability to dynamically change the amount of CPU and RAM. Storage IOPS of a VM saves a lot of money when performance is not needed, as well as allows you to scale quickly when more resources are required at peak times.

Alternatives Considered

Google Compute Engine and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

Other Software Used

A Cloud Guru (Linux Academy), The Okta Identity Cloud, Box, Slack, Remote Desktop Manager, Devolutions Server

Likelihood to Recommend

IBM Cloud Virtual Servers are well suited in scenarios when you need some compute power in a very reliable data center with many certifications useful for compliance. The other thing I like is that the VM pricing is clear and there are no weird calculations to do.

Unfortunately, I must note that IBM Cloud is not a winner over the rest of its competitors:

Often poor performance. If the VM happens to be on an "unlucky" host because other customers are using resources, you have to open a case and ask for moving the VM to another host.

Tickets are often responded to after hours or days.

The KVM is very bad (based on Java, it does not work on modern browsers but must be opened via a VNC client) and often does not work (also, here you have to ask the support).

The VMs are based on XenServer. The drivers must be updated often and the procedure to update them is absurd (after the update the network configurations are lost and you have to reboot, login with the KVM, and restore them). If you do not update the drivers you have stability and crash problems, especially with Windows.

They often do maintenance with downtime and automatic VM restarts.

The firewall they propose (Vyatta) is the most inconvenient to use I've ever seen. The alternative is to rely on very simple and limited network rules.

The amount of internet traffic included is low and the costs to exceed the included ones are very high.

Reliable cloud with a slightly higher cost and not top performance

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Cloud Virtual Servers