New 4th Gen Intel Xeon profiles and dynamic network bandwidth shake up the IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers for VPC portfolio

We’re pleased to announce that 4th Gen Intel^® Xeon^® processors on IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers for VPC are available on IBM Cloud. Our customers can now provision Intel’s newest microarchitecture inside their own virtual private cloud and gain access to a host of performance enhancements, including more core-to-memory ratios (21 new server profiles/) and dynamic network bandwidth exclusive to IBM Cloud VPC. For anyone keeping track, that’s 3x as many provisioning options than our current 2nd Gen Intel Xeon processors. Let’s explore.

IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers for VPC are on our newest, developer-friendly platform with rapid provisioning, high network speeds and the most secure, software-defined resources available inside IBM. Your CPUs would be exclusively on 4th Gen Intel Xeon processors, which we announced first on IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers for classic infrastructure in tandem with Intel’s day-one release. Classic IBM Cloud infrastructure is different than IBM Cloud VPC. It’s more ideal for large, steady-state, predicable operations that require maximum customization. IBM Cloud VPC, however, is great for high-availability and maximum elasticity demands. Check out this short intro video to understand which environment would suit your workload requirements best.

If IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers for VPC ends up being your preferred choice, then your customization options include five pre-set profile families (your number of CPU instances, RAM and bandwidth). Each profile brings you DDR-5 memory and dynamic network bandwidth from 10 to 200 Gbps, which is a unique feature to IBM Cloud.

1. Compute profiles are best for intensive CPU demands, like high web traffic operations, production batch processing and front-end web servers.
2. Balanced profiles are for a mix of performance and scalability—ideal for midsize databases and common cloud applications with moderate traffic.
3. Memory profiles are best for memory-intensive workloads, such as large caching and database applications, or in-memory analytics.
4. Very high profiles are best for running small to medium in-memory databases and OLAP, such as SAP BW/4 HANA.
5. Ultra-high profiles offer the most memory per core, ideal for large in-memory databases and OLTP workloads, too.

We saw a host of workloads come through our beta program this year, but a few key success stories really stood out:

• VMware Cloud Foundation on IBM Cloud – These workloads required high core performance, VMware compatibility, licensing portability, smaller core count variety and Generic OS (which we recently released). They tested for VMware managed VCF and build-your-own VMware VCF within a dedicated space and were pleased with the customization flexibility and benchmark performance increases to back it up. These workloads will be available on 4th Gen Intel Xeon profiles inside IBM Cloud VPC throughout 2H’24.
• HPCaaS – This workload was unique, and we believe it’s a focal use case for this release. They tested for higher performance with terraform and IBM Storage Scale and were pleased with the throughput increase and agile provisioning experience between platforms and networking.
• Financial services/banking – This workload required powerful, dedicated system performance and maximum security and compliance. They tested for capacity expansion, UI experience, security controls and security management, and were pleased with the shortened production times.

IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers with 4th Gen Intel Xeon processors are available in IBM Cloud Dallas, TX data centers, with more locations to follow in 2H’24. See all pricing and provisioning options for our new 4th Gen Intel Xeon processors and save a quote inside the IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers for VPC catalog. Alternatively, open a chat and get some quick answers. Learn more with our getting started guides and tutorials inside our cloud docs.

If you’re curious about deploying your first workload on IBM Cloud VPC, or you’re an existing customer looking to provision new workloads, then be sure to use our limited time promotion for IBM Cloud VPC. Get USD 1,000 in credits to use toward your new VPC resources—including compute, network and storage components with promo code VPC1000 inside bare metal or virtual server catalogs. This is a limited time promotion, is only available with 2^nd Gen Intel Xeon-based profiles and other previous generation profiles.