Home Compute and servers Virtual Server for Classic Infrastructure IBM Cloud Virtual Servers on IBM Cloud Classic Infrastructure
Public, dedicated, reserved and transient “spot” virtual servers with Intel Xeon processors
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Popular servers and profiles Explore all Intel® Xeon® servers. Enter the IBM Cloud catalog. Create an account Compute

C1.1x1

Compute profiles are best for moderate-to-high web-traffic workloads, such as workloads with intensive CPU demands—including production-batch processing and front-end web servers.

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Balanced

B1.4x16

Best for common cloud workloads that require a balance of performance and scalability. Balanced profiles with network-attached storage yield higher performance because resources aren’t oversubscribed.

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Memory

M1.4x32

Memory profiles are best for memory-intensive workloads, such as large memory-caching workloads, intensive database applications, or in-memory and real-time analytics workloads.

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Essential performance. Lots of options.

IBM Cloud Virtual Servers on IBM Cloud Classic Infrastructure operate within our first IaaS platform and network, and they’re ideal for lift-and-shift workloads that require fast application movement within the same architecture. Spin up on demand and budget intelligently with hourly or monthly pricing, or suspend billing. Reserve in advance or opt for our pay-as-you-use model. All servers feature the power of Intel Xeon processor technology.

See newest virtual servers

Looking for the latest virtual servers with advanced networking features on IBM Cloud VPC? Head this way.

How customers use IBM Cloud Virtual Servers on Classic Infrastructure Web hosting

Since 2011, Drugs.com has used a combination of IBM Cloud Virtual Servers and IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers to support over 50 million patient and healthcare users per month.

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Machine learning as a service (ML-as-a-Service)

Water utilities can now detect unsafe water faster and easier with help of unsupervised machine learning; Decision Makers, Ltd.; and IBM Cloud Virtual Servers.

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Why IBM Cloud Virtual Servers

Essential performance for single-tenant or multi-tenant capacity

Hourly virtual servers

Choose hourly billikng and pay only for what you use.

Monthly virtual servers

Choose monthly billing for consistent pricing and budgeting.

Suspend billing

Help reduce costs and stop reprovisioning servers when you need resources again. Suspend billing is a fast, cost-efficient answer to stopping and reclaiming capacity for hourly virtual servers.

Spot pricing

Help reduce costs by running specific workloads, such as non-production or dev/test, on transient servers with on-the-spot pricing. These servers are de-provisioned on a first-on, first-off basis.

Public servers

Public, multi-tenant servers come in a variety of pre-configured profiles to better suit your dynamic workload requirements. Profiles include: Compute, Variable Compute, Memory, GPU, Balanced and Balanced Local Storage.

Dedicated servers

Dedicated, single-tenant servers offer added control and isolation for sensitive workload requirements. You choose dedicated hosts or dedicated instances. Dedicated hosts help with control over workload placement and dedicated instances offer single-tenant isolation.

Transient servers

Transient servers—also known as “spot pricing” servers—are de-provisioned on a first-on, first-off basis; are offered at a significantly lower price; and are ideal for dev/test applications and other non-production workloads that don’t require constant uptime.

Reserved servers

Reserve up to 20 virtual servers in advance, in the data center of your choice. Choose 1-year or 3-year contract terms. Reserved virtual servers are ideal for sustained workloads that require enterprise-level budgeting outlooks.

Dedicated hosts

Single-tenant dedicated hosts help control workload placement and support network throughputs of up to 20 Gbps. View core, RAM and local storage consumption for maximum control of workload management.

Compute

Ideal for CPU-intensive workloads, such as front-end processing and batch processing

Variable compute

Ideal for low-usage and intermittent workloads that don’t require consistent CPU-capacity performance

Memory

Ideal for memory-intensive workloads, like in-memory analytics and medium-to-large caching

GPU

Ideal for high-performance workloads requiring more compute density, such as AI, intense graphics and data applications, and deep learning

Balanced

Ideal for common cloud workloads requiring a balance of performance and scale, such as moderate web traffic

Balanced local storage

Ideal for large database workloads requiring low latency and high I/O performance. Select from SSD and HDD storage options.

Global network

Deploy virtual server workloads in over 60 IBM Cloud Data Centers across 6 regions and 19 availability zones globally. Built for local access, low latency and certified security, IBM Cloud offers a range of choices about where and how your data and workloads run. The availability zone design can make applications and databases highly available, fault-tolerant and scalable.

In-network bandwidth

All inbound and outbound bandwidth inside the IBM Cloud global, private network is unlimited and cost-free for your virtual server use.

Outbound data transfer

Public, outbound bandwidth is charged on a tiered basis, with a set allotment for each month of your virtual server use.

IBM Cloud VPC

IBM Cloud Virtual Servers on the IBM Cloud VPC network deliver fast provisioning compute capacity with the highest network speeds and most secure, software-defined networking resources available on the IBM Cloud.

Resources Get started with virtual servers

Explore security, storage and software options. Check out tutorials and more.

How-to documentation

From provisioning and managing virtual servers to monitoring and migrating, read our how-to docs.

API reference

See more information about our API, virtual APIs, and dedicated and public virtual-server usage examples.

Virtual servers explained

Virtual servers, also called virtual machines or virtual private servers, come with dedicated core and memory allocations. VMs on classic infrastructures are deployed to the same VLANs as physical servers, so you can spread workloads across virtual servers and bare metal servers, while maintaining interoperability. Virtual servers are customizable and scalable.

The standard IBM Cloud® Virtual Servers for Classic Infrastructure offering is a public-based virtual server—a multi-tenant environment suited for various needs. Alternatively, the dedicated virtual server option is a single-tenant environment ideal for applications with more stringent resource requirements. For more, see Getting started with virtual servers.

Choosing a virtual machine or a physical machine (bare metal server) depends on your needs. Bare metal servers are single-tenant, physical servers void of virtualization software and dedicated to a single client. Workloads prioritizing performance and seclusion are best suited for bare metal. VMs best support workloads demanding flexibility and scalability.

IBM Cloud Virtual Servers on our Classic Infrastructure operate on native subnet and VLAN networking to communicate to each other within a data center (and single pod). IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC operate with an additional network orchestration layer that eliminates the pod boundary, creating increased capacity for scaling instances.

Enterprise IT administrators and users use VMs to:

  • Enable cloud computing. Run and scale different types of apps and workloads.
  • Support DevOps. Configure templates with settings for software development and testing to help streamline the DevOps toolchain.
  • Test a new operating system.
  • Investigate malware.
  • Run incompatible software.
  • Browse securely.

The number of instances you can run depends on the maturity level of your account. By default, an account older than 45 days has a limit of 20 instances that can run on public virtual servers, dedicated virtual servers and bare-metal servers at any time. A newer account has a smaller limit. If you would like to increase your limit, contact support.

Related products IBM Cloud® Virtual Servers for VPC

Get advanced networking and performance features with dedicated and multi-tenant options.

IBM Power Systems Virtual Servers

Extend your on-prem workloads at your own pace and price point.

IBM Cloud® Hyper Protect Virtual Servers

Control workloads that contain sensitive data or business IP.

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