IBM Cloud Foundry Enterprise Environment – an on-demand, single-customer Platform-as-a-Service on IBM Cloud
We’re updating a fresh and exciting capability on the IBM Cloud as we release our Beta version of the IBM Cloud Foundry Enterprise Environment.
This offering allows users to create and manage isolated Cloud Foundry environments for hosting applications exclusively for their organizations. It provides on-demand self-service provisioning, elastic consumption, and complete access to administrative capabilities. It can make seamless use of the vast catalog of IBM Cloud services, enabling customers to build complex applications with a wide range of services, including Watson AI.
This is a follow up to the Experimental launch a few months ago (lots of information here and here on that).
Key features
This offering provides a range of benefits to Enterprise customers, including the following:
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A tenant-specific Cloud Foundry environment with optional hardware isolation
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Self-service on-demand automated provisioning directly from the IBM Cloud catalog
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Ability to scale provisioned capacity on-demand, allowing control over environment costs and rapid business flexibility
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Full administrative control over the standard certified Cloud Foundry platform
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Integration with the full catalog of IBM Cloud services
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Optional management of Cloud Foundry environments from IBM (soon to come)
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Availability in many IBM Cloud regions for meeting geo-specific privacy concerns
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Ability to run all Cloud Foundry application workloads on an infrastructure provisioned in the customer’s IBM Cloud account
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Access to a one-stop-shop with the PaaS platform, underlying infrastructure, invoicing, and support
A new architecture for hosting Cloud Foundry
This service uniquely unites two powerhouse open-source projects: Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes. The enthusiastic adoption of Kubernetes in the cloud market merited a closer look at how customers could leverage both platforms (one focused on applications and the other focused on containers as the primary units of business function) to build coherent cloud solutions.
The IBM Cloud Foundry Enterprise Environment offering has taken this approach by using the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service to host the Cloud Foundry PaaS environment in order to provide rapid deployment and management. Since these are both available to customers in the IBM Cloud, Enterprise customers have the ability to easily build complete business solutions by deploying parts to Cloud Foundry as well as Kubernetes. Together, these two projects provide organizations what they need most—rapid solution development with the flexibility to configure the hosting and control of their combined Cloud platform wherever and whenever needed.
As explained by Don Boulia, GM for IBM Cloud Developer Services, at the announcement at the 2018 Cloud Foundry Summit in Boston:
“We are bringing the combined strengths of Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes into a secure, isolated cloud environment. This eliminates the need for developers to choose between these two traditionally separate cloud development technologies and joins together the strengths of both in a way that gives developers complete control of where their data is living and who can access it.”
With this new release, Tammy Van Hove, IBM Distinguished Engineer & Cloud Foundry Tribe Director, expanded on the isolation concept and its critical role in application deployment:
“IBM is delivering a secure, fully isolated, and self-service Cloud Foundry offering in the IBM Cloud; one which provides customers the flexibility and control they require to rapidly deploy their workloads without having to configure and manage the underlying infrastructure”
IBM Cloud Foundry offerings
Prior to this service, IBM Cloud has offered Cloud Foundry PaaS capabilities in three distinct models:
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IBM Cloud Foundry Public: Run cloud-native applications using Cloud Foundry for simple stand-up and powerful scaling and traffic management. Consumption is metered by the hour and is based on usage
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IBM Cloud Foundry Dedicated: A hardware-isolated Cloud Foundry environment, managed by IBM, with limited administrative access for customers. This is provisioned by an IBM Cloud deployment engagement following an order made through a sales representative
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IBM Cloud Foundry Private: A Cloud Foundry platform that runs in your data center on your infrastructure alongside the core IBM Cloud Private Kubernetes offering
IBM Cloud Foundry Enterprise Environment now joins this list as a single-tenant environment that can be rapidly self-provisioned through the IBM Cloud public console, can allow full customer Cloud Foundry administrator control, has options for hardware isolation, and can access IBM Cloud’s full catalog of over 170 services, including the amazing Watson and IoT offerings.
What does your business need?
Many lines of businesses require a rapid application development platform where they don’t need to deal with managing solution scalability, availability, and the underlying infrastructure. However, these also need to meet an ever-growing list of constraints, such as the following:
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Workload isolation for performance and security
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Specific geo-location of workloads and associated data
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Regulatory compliance with established IT standards and processes
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Network security
Enterprise solutions and applications that have such constraints would benefit from the IBM Cloud Foundry Enterprise Environment offering.
How to engage
Beta access is now universally available in the US South, US East, EU-DE, and AU-SYD regions. For the duration of the Beta, there is no charge for the Cloud Foundry component of the offering. However, there will be charges for the infrastructure and dependent services in conjunction with the IBM Cloud Foundry Enterprise Environment.
Here are some getting-started points:
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Sign up for IBM Cloud
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Create your own Cloud Foundry Enterprise Environment
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Read the Beta engagement/documentation notes
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Join us on our Slack feedback forum to send your feedback, ask questions, and engage with the product team. Request access here.
Press and information
Some information about the service, the launch, and, most especially, community engagement.