Provisioning

Location and platform

• Location - Choose the region where you want to deploy your database. Each region in the list shows which platform it supports, Gen 1 or Gen 2 to help guide your selection.
• Platform - Select the platform you want to deploy your database on. Available options depend on the region you choose. For more information on the differences between Gen 1 and Gen 2 , see Overview of Gen 1 and Gen 2.

Service details

• Service name: The name can be any string and is the name that is used on the web and in the CLI to identify the new deployment.
• Resource group: If you are organizing your services into resource groups, specify the resource group in this field. Otherwise, you can leave it at default. For more information, see Managing resource groups.
• Location: The deployment's public cloud region.

Select the platform for your deployment.

• Gen 1: IBM Cloud®’s original platform, available across all IBM Cloud data centers.
• Gen 2: IBM Cloud®'s latest platform, based on a highly secure software-defined networking architecture. Gen 2 is optimized for cloud-native applications.

For more details, see Overview of Gen 1 (Classic) and Gen 2 (VPC).

Hosting model

Gen 2 supports Isolated Compute only. Isolated Compute provides a secure single-tenant offering with dedicated resources and hypervisor-level isolation for complex, highly-performant enterprise workloads. For more information, see Isolated Compute.

Resource allocation

Choose the initial host size and disk configuration for your deployment. Host size and disk allocation apply per instance member.

• Host size: Use the table to choose the available configurations of vCPU and RAM to match your workload needs.

  Host sizes/members
  4 vCPU x 16 RAM
  8 vCPU x 32 RAM
  8 vCPU x 64 RAM
  16 vCPU x 64 RAM
  32 vCPU x 128 RAM
  30 vCPU x 240 RAM

• Disk: Configure the initial disk size for your deployment. Use the slider to set disk capacity.

Disk size can be increased after provisioning but cannot be decreased to prevent data loss.

Service configuration

• Database version: Set only at deployment The deployment version of your database. The console highlights the preferred version to ensure optimal performance. Gen 2 supports MySQL 8.4. The latest minor version is used automatically. For more information, see Versioning policy.
• Encryption: Set only at deployment If you use Key Protect, an instance and key can be selected to encrypt the deployment's disk. If you do not use your own key, the deployment automatically creates and manages its own disk encryption key.
• Endpoints: Set only at deployment - Gen 2 supports private endpoints only.

After you select the appropriate settings, click Create to start the provisioning process.

Create a service instance through the CLI

Before provisioning, follow the instructions provided in the documentation to install the IBM Cloud CLI tool.

1. Log in to IBM Cloud. If you use a federated user ID, it's important that you switch to a one-time passcode (ibmcloud login --sso), or use an API key (ibmcloud --apikey key or @key_file) to authenticate. For more information about how to log in by using the CLI, see General CLI (ibmcloud) commands under ibmcloud login.

   ibmcloud login
   

2. Gen 2 supports Isolated Compute only. Select the desired Isolated Compute size for your deployment.

3. Provision your database with the following command:

   ibmcloud resource service-instance-create <INSTANCE_NAME> <SERVICE_NAME> <SERVICE_PLAN_NAME> <LOCATION> <RESOURCE_GROUP> -p '{"host_flavor": "<host_flavor value>"}' --service-endpoints="private"
   

   For example, to provision a Databases for MySQL Gen 2 Isolated Compute instance, use a command like:

   ibmcloud resource service-instance-create test-instance databases-for-mysql standard-gen2 in-che -g Default -p '{"dataservices": {"mysql": {"storage_gb": 10, "members": 2, "host_flavor": "bxf.4x16"}}}'
   

   Available hosting sizes and their host_flavor value parameters are listed in Table 2. For example, {"host_flavor": "b3c.4x16.encrypted"} provisions 4 CPU and 16 GB RAM. Note that since the host flavor selection includes CPU and RAM sizes, this request does not accept both an Isolated size selection and separate CPU and RAM allocation selections.

   Gen 2 supports private endpoints only. The --service-endpoints parameter must be set to "private".

   The fields in the command are described in the table that follows.

   Basic command format fields

   Field	Description	Flag
   INSTANCE_NAME Required	The instance name can be any string and is the name that is used on the web and in the CLI to identify the new deployment.
   SERVICE_NAME Required	Name or ID of the service. For Databases for MySQL, use databases-for-mysql.
   SERVICE_PLAN_NAME Required	Standard plan (standard-gen2)
   LOCATION Required	The location where you want to deploy. To retrieve a list of regions, use the ibmcloud regions command.
   RESOURCE_GROUP	The Resource group name. The default value is default.	-g
   --parameters	JSON file or JSON string of parameters to create service instance	-p
   host_flavor	To provision an Isolated Compute instance, use {"host_flavor": "<host_flavor value>"}. For Isolated Compute, select the desired CPU and RAM configuration. For more information, see the following Table 2.

   You will see a response like:

   Creating service instance INSTANCE_NAME in resource group default of account    USER...
   OK
   Service instance INSTANCE_NAME was created.
   
   Name:                   INSTANCE_NAME
   ID:                     crn:v1:bluemix:public:databases-for-mysql:in-che:a/cf8d4161fa0243b9a2a5494cd7ff66b7:d79c8a28-cfe0-4e25-8952-16aaa11cc5f0::
   GUID:                   d79c8a28-cfe0-4e25-8952-16aaa11cc5f0
   Location:               in-che
   State:                  provisioning
   Type:                   service_instance
   Sub Type:               Public
   Allow Cleanup:          false
   Locked:                 false
   One-time credentials:   true
   Created at:             2026-06-15T10:36:00Z
   Updated at:             2026-06-15T10:36:01Z
   Last Operation:
                        Status    create in progress
                        Message   Started create instance operation
   

   • To check provisioning status, use the following command:

     ibmcloud resource service-instance <INSTANCE_NAME>
     

     When complete, you will see a response like:

     Retrieving service instance INSTANCE_NAME in resource group default under account USER's Account as USER...
     OK
     
     Name:                   INSTANCE_NAME
     ID:                     crn:v1:bluemix:public:databases-for-mysql:in-che:a/cf8d4161fa0243b9a2a5494cd7ff66b7:d79c8a28-cfe0-4e25-8952-16aaa11cc5f0::
     GUID:                   d79c8a28-cfe0-4e25-8952-16aaa11cc5f0
     Location:               in-che
     Service Name:           databases-for-mysql
     Service Plan Name:      standard-gen2
     Resource Group Name:    Default
     State:                  active
     Type:                   service_instance
     Sub Type:               Public
     Locked:                 false
     One-time credentials:   true
     Created at:             2026-06-14T08:48:02Z
     Created by:             USER
     Updated at:             2026-06-14T09:09:20Z
     Last Operation:
                             Status    create succeeded
                             Message   Provision completed successfully
     

   • (Optional) Delete an instance by running a command like this one:

     ibmcloud resource service-instance-delete <INSTANCE_NAME_OR_CRN>
     

The host_flavor parameter

The host_flavor parameter defines your Compute sizing. Gen 2 supports Isolated Compute only. Input the appropriate value for your desired CPU and RAM configuration.

| Host size | vCPU x RAM           | host_flavor value         |
|-----------|----------------------|---------------------------|
| 4x20      | 4 vCPU x 20 GB RAM   | bx3d.4x20.encrypted        |
| 8x40      | 8 vCPU x 40 GB RAM   | bx3d.8x40.encrypted        |
| 16x80     | 16 vCPU x 80 GB RAM  | bx3d.16x80.encrypted       |
| 32x160    | 32 vCPU x 160 GB RAM | bx3d.32x160.encrypted      |
| 48x240    | 48 vCPU x 240 GB RAM | bx3d.48x240.encrypted      |

| Host size | vCPU x RAM           | host_flavor value         |
|-----------|----------------------|---------------------------|
| 4x16      | 4 vCPU x 16 GB RAM   | bxf.4x16.encrypted        |
| 8x32      | 8 vCPU x 32 GB RAM   | bxf.8x32.encrypted        |
| 16x64     | 16 vCPU x 64 GB RAM  | bxf.16x64.encrypted       |
| 32x128    | 32 vCPU x 128 GB RAM | bxf.32x128.encrypted      |
| 48x192    | 48 vCPU x 192 GB RAM | bxf.48x192.encrypted      |

The --parameters parameter

The service-instance-create command supports a -p flag, which allows JSON-formatted parameters to be passed to the provisioning process. For example, you can pass Cloud Resource Names (CRNs) as parameter values, which uniquely identify a resource in the cloud. All parameter names and values are passed as strings.

For example, if a database is being provisioned from a particular backup and the new database deployment needs a total of 12 GB of memory across three members, then the command to provision 4 GBs per member looks like:

ibmcloud resource service-instance-create databases-for-mysql <SERVICE_NAME> standard-gen2 us-south \
-p \ '{
  "backup_id": "crn:v1:blue:public:databases-for-mysql-gen2:us-south:a/54e8ffe85dcedf470db5b5ee6ac4a8d8:1b8f53db-fc2d-4e24-8470-f82b15c71717:backup:06392e97-df90-46d8-98e8-cb67e9e0a8e6",
"host_flavor": "bx3d.16x80.encrypted"

The host_flavor parameter

The host_flavor parameter defines your Compute sizing. To provision an Isolated Compute instance, input the appropriate value for your desired CPU and RAM configuration.

List of additional parameters

In the --parameters object you can provide additional information to create your service instance, including:

• backup_id - A CRN of a backup resource to restore from. The backup must be created by a database deployment with the same service ID. The backup is loaded after provisioning and the new deployment starts up that uses that data. A backup CRN is in the format crn:v1:<...>:backup:<uuid>. If omitted, the database is provisioned empty.

• version - The version of the database to be provisioned. If omitted, the database is created with the most recent major and minor version.

• disk_encryption_key_crn - The CRN of a KMS key (Key Protect), which is then used for disk encryption. A KMS key CRN is in the format crn:v1:<...>:key:<id>.

• backup_encryption_key_crn - The CRN of a KMS key (Key Protect), which is then used for backup encryption. A KMS key CRN is in the format crn:v1:<...>:key:<id>.

  To use a key for your backups, you must first enable the service-to-service delegation.

Provisioning Isolated Compute with Terraform

Provision a Databases for MySQL Isolated instance with the same "host_flavor" parameter, setting it to the desired Isolated size. Available hosting sizes and their host_flavor value parameters are listed in Table 1. For example, {"host_flavor": "bx3d.4x20.encrypted"}. Note that since the host flavor selection includes CPU and RAM sizes (bx3d.4x20.encrypted is 4 CPU and 16 RAM), this request does not accept both an Isolated size selection and separate CPU and RAM allocation selections.

data "ibm_resource_group" "group" {
  name = "<your_group>"
}
resource "ibm_database" "<your_database>" {
  name              = "<your_database_name>"
  plan              = "standard"
  location          = "eu-gb"
  service           = "databases-for-mysql"
  resource_group_id = data.ibm_resource_group.group.id
  service_endpoints = "private"
  tags              = ["tag1", "tag2"]
  adminpassword                = "password12"
  group {
    group_id = "member"
    host_flavor {
      id = "bx3d.4x20.encrypted"
    }
    disk {
      allocation_mb = 256000
    }
  }
  users {
    name     = "user123"
    password = "password12"
  }
  allowlist {
    address     = "172.168.1.1/32"
    description = "desc"
  }
}
output "ICD MySQL database connection string" {
  value = "http://${ibm_database.test_acc.ibm_database_connection.icd_conn}"
}

The host flavor parameter

The host_flavor parameter defines your Compute sizing. To provision an Isolated Compute instance, input the appropriate value for your desired CPU and RAM configuration. See the values in the following tables.