IBM is introducing a private cloud offering around Power Virtual Server. Customers can purchase ready-made server, network and storage packages and run them in their own environment.

Although hypervisors like IBM would not prefer companies to move entirely to the public cloud, in practice companies often prefer to keep certain parts of their IT environment on-premises. IBM is responding to this and announcing a new offering for its Power Virtual Servers for operation in an on-prem environment.

Customers can now purchase Power Virtual Servers as “pods.” These include all the necessary server, network and storage hardware and are offered using an IaaS-like formula. The private cloud layer is still controlled by IBM’s cloud.

Big and small pods

Pods can vary in size. The smallest pods contain two to four servers, each with 8 terabytes of memory, enough for 340 CPU cores and 438 terabytes of available storage, and can be housed in a single rack. Larger pods can contain up to forty servers, each with 32 terabytes of memory, with up to 1,600 CPU cores and 3.5 petabytes of storage.

The preferred operating systems to run on the pods are AIX (7.2 or later), IBM i (7.3 or later), and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (8.6 or later). Further information on the technical specifications and requirements can be found here.

Pay for what you use

Anyone who would like to subscribe to the Power Virtual Server Private Cloud offer can do so for one, three or five years. No upfront payment is required, IBM uses a pass-as-you-go model. This means that compute, memory, storage and operating system licenses are measured and billed per usage.

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud will initially be launched in eleven countries. Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg are among the lucky ones. In Europe, the offer is also starting in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.