Feature differences between IBM watsonx deployments
The IBM watsonx experience on IBM Cloud and on IBM Software Hub software has some differences in features and implementation. IBM watsonx as a Service is a set of cloud platform services. The IBM watsonx 2.3 services on IBM Software Hub 5.3 are offered as software that you must install and maintain. Services that are available on both deployments also have differences in features on IBM watsonx as a Service compared to IBM watsonx 2.3, 2.2, and 2.1.
- Platform differences
- Common features across services
- watsonx.ai Studio
- watsonx.ai Runtime
- watsonx.governance
Platform differences
IBM watsonx as a Service and the IBM watsonx experience software share a common code base, however, they differ in the following key ways:
| Features | As a service | Software |
|---|---|---|
| Software, hardware, and installation | IBM watsonx is fully managed by IBM on IBM Cloud. Software updates are automatic. Scaling of compute resources and storage is automatic. You sign up at Try IBM watsonx.ai. | You provide and maintain hardware. You install, maintain, and upgrade the software. See Software requirements. |
| Storage | You provision a IBM Cloud Object Storage service instance to provide storage. See IBM Cloud Object Storage service. | You provide persistent storage on a Red Hat OpenShift cluster. See Storage requirements. |
| Compute resources for running workloads | Users choose the appropriate runtime for their jobs. Compute usage is billed based on the rate for the runtime environment and the duration of the job. See Monitor account resource usage. | You set up the number of Red Hat OpenShift nodes with the appropriate number of vCPUs. See Hardware requirements and Monitoring the platform. |
| Cost | You buy each service that you need at the appropriate plan level. Many services bill for compute and other resource consumption. See each service page in the IBM Cloud catalog or in the services catalog on IBM watsonx, by selecting Administration > Services > Services catalog from the navigation menu. | You buy a software license based on the services that you need. See Licenses and entitlements. |
| Security, compliance, and isolation | The data security, network security, security standards compliance, and isolation of IBM watsonx are managed by IBM Cloud. You can set up extra security and encryption options. See Security of IBM watsonx. | Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform provides basic security features. Cloud Pak for Data is assessed for various Privacy and Compliance regulations and provides features that you can use in preparation for various privacy and compliance assessments. You are responsible for additional security features, encryption, and network isolation. See Security considerations. |
| Available services | Most watsonx services are available in both deployment environments. See IBM Cloud services. |
Includes many other services for other components and solutions. See Services. |
| User management | You add users and user groups and manage their account roles and permissions with IBM Cloud Identity and Access Management. See Add users to the account. You can also set up SAML federation on IBM Cloud. See IBM Cloud docs: How IBM Cloud IAM works. |
You can add users and create user groups from the Administration menu. You can use the Identity and Access Management Service or use your existing SAML SSO or LDAP provider for identity and password management. You can create dynamic, attribute-based user groups. See User management. |
Common core functionality across services
Most functionality for the platform is effectively the same for as a service and software deployments.
The following table describes differences in core functionality across services between IBM watsonx and watsonx software, versions 2.3, 2.2, and 2.1.
| Feature | As a service | Software |
|---|---|---|
| Manage all projects | Users with the Manage projects permission from the IAM service access Manager role for the IBM Cloud Pak for Data service can join any project with the Admin role and then manage or delete the project. | Users with the Manage projects permission can join any project with the Admin role and then manage or delete the project. |
| Connections to remote data sources | Most supported data sources are common to both deployment environments. See Connectors. |
See Connectors. |
| Connection credentials that are personal or shared | Connections in projects and catalogs can require personal credentials or allow shared credentials. Shared credentials can be disabled at the account level. | Platform connections can require personal credentials or allow shared credentials. Shared credentials can be disabled at the platform level. |
| Connection credentials from secrets in a vault | Not available | Available |
| Kerberos authentication | Not available | Available for some services and connections |
| Sample assets and projects from the Resource hub app | Available on IBM Cloud and AWS. Not available on AWS GovCloud. |
Not available |
| Custom JDBC connector | Not available | Available |
IBM watsonx.ai Studio
Most features and capabilities of watsonx.ai Studio as a Service are effectively the same for watsonx.ai Studio software, versions 2.3, 2.2, and 2.1.
The watsonx.ai Studio service is available on the following cloud as-a-service deployment environments:
- IBM Cloud: See IBM Cloud services.
- AWS Commercial: See AWS services.
- AWS GovCloud: See AWS GovCloud services.
The availability of features in cloud as-a-service deployments can vary across regional data centers. See Regional availability.
The following table describes the feature differences between the watsonx.ai Studio service on as-a-service deployment environments and the watsonx.ai Studio service plus additional services on the IBM Software Hub software deployment environment.
Foundation model availability depends on the following factors:
- For cloud as-a-service deployments, foundation model availability varies by regional data center. See Regional availability of foundation models.
- For software deployments, foundation models must be installed on the cluster. See Supported foundation models and Supported embedding models.
| Feature | IBM Cloud | AWS | AWS GovCloud | Software on IBM Software Hub |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automatically created sandbox project | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Jupyter notebooks | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Git integration to publish notebooks | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Sync project assets with GitHub repository | ✓ | |||
| Project terminal for advanced Git operations | ✓ | |||
| IBM Orchestration Pipelines | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Synthetic unstructured data generation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Synthetic structured data generation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Foundation model tuning | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| SPSS Modeler | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Decision Optimization | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Data Refinery | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| JupyterLab | ✓ | |||
| Visual Studio Code integration | ✓ | |||
| RStudio | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Python scripts | ✓ | |||
| Load data to a notebook by using code (Flight service) | ✓ | |||
| Manage notebook lifecycle with CPDCTL | ✓ | |||
| Create code package assets with CPDCTL in deployment spaces | ✓ | |||
| Promote notebooks to spaces | ✓ | |||
| Python with GPU | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Create and use custom Python and R images | ✓ | |||
| Anaconda Repository integration | ✓ | |||
| Hadoop integration | ✓ |
watsonx.ai Runtime
Most features and capabilities of watsonx.ai Runtime as a Service are effectively the same for watsonx.ai Runtime software, versions 2.3, 2.2, and 2.1.
The watsonx.ai Runtime service is available on the following cloud as-a-service deployment environments:
- IBM Cloud: See IBM Cloud services.
- AWS Commercial: See AWS services.
- AWS GovCloud: See AWS GovCloud services.
The following table describes the feature differences between the watsonx.ai Runtime service on as-a-service deployment environments and the watsonx.ai Runtime service plus additional services on the IBM Software Hub software deployment environment.
| Feature | IBM Cloud | AWS | AWS GovCloud | Software on IBM Software Hub |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AutoAI | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Custom foundation models | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Deploy on demand foundation models | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Deploy ML with popular frameworks and software specifications |
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Connect to databases for batch deployments | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Create deployment spaces | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Deploy and score Python scripts | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Deploy and batch score R Scripts | ✓ | |||
| Deploy Shiny apps | ✓ | |||
| Control deployment space creation | ✓ | |||
| Import from GIT project to space | ✓ | |||
| Code package automatically created when importing from Git project to space |
✓ | |||
| Update RShiny app from code package | ✓ | |||
| Create and use custom images | ✓ | |||
| Notify collaborators about Pipeline events | ✓ | |||
| Deep Learning Experiments | ✓ |
watsonx.governance
Most features and capabilities of watsonx.governance as a Service are effectively the same for watsonx.governance software version 2.3.x.
The following table describes the feature differences between the watsonx.governance service on as-a-service deployment environments and the watsonx.governance service on the IBM Software Hub software deployment environment.
| Feature | IBM Cloud | AWS | AWS GovCloud | Software on IBM Software Hub |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Integrate Governance console with AWS (Amazon SageMaker) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| IBM SPSS Collaboration and Deployment Services | ✓ | |||
| Batch processing | ✓ | |||
| Free database and Postgres plans | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Set up multiple instances | ✓ | |||
| Guardrails Manager | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Content Safety Detector Testing UI | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Custom guardrails support (API only) | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Evaluate agentic applications in Evaluation Studio | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Monitor watsonx Orchestrate agents | ✓ | |||
| Governed agentic catalog | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Evaluate Chat prompt templates | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Record-level metrics view for custom metrics | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Manage models in inventories | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Synchronize model groups from Governance console | ✓ |