Comparing IBM Cloud classic and VPC infrastructure environments

Compare the key differences between IBM Cloud® infrastructure environments to decide which one is best for your workloads and applications. Watch this video to learn more about the differences between the classic and VPC infrastructures.

If you aren't familiar with the environment types, review the following descriptions.

  • The classic infrastructure is the existing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform. This environment is best for lift and shift workloads so you can move applications quickly and keep the same architecture.
  • VPC infrastructure is the new IaaS platform, based on software-defined networking and ideal for cloud-native applications.

Compute differentiators

See the following table for the compute differences between classic and VPC.

Compute comparison
This table has row and column headers. The row headers identify possible features. The column headers identify the differentiators between classic infrastructure and VPC infrastructure. To understand the differences between environments, go to the row and find the details for the feature that you're interested in.
Category Classic infrastructure VPC infrastructure
Services
  • Virtual Servers
  • Bare Metal Servers
  • Dedicated hosts
  • Reserved virtual servers
  • Virtual Servers
  • Bare Metal Servers
  • Dedicated hosts
  • Reservations for virtual servers and bare metal servers
  • Instance Metadata service
  • Instance templates
  • Instance groups
  • Auto Scale for VPC
Performance and availability
  • Networking speeds up to 50 Gbps
  • High-speed networking up to 200 Gbps
  • Zonal architecture provides better availability
Pricing
  • Hourly and monthly billing
  • Suspend billing feature for supported configurations
  • Hourly and monthly billing
  • Suspend billing feature
  • Cost savings for reservations
Bare Metal servers Customizable servers that feature advanced Intel® Xeon® CPUs, or AMD CPUs, and NVIDIA GPUs Profile-based servers that feature advanced Intel® Xeon® CPUs, Data Processing Unit (DPU) technology, rapid provisioning, and hourly billing
Virtual server profile families
  • Balanced
  • Balanced local storage
  • Variable compute
  • Compute
  • Memory
  • Transient option for supported profiles
  • GPU
  • Balanced
  • Compute
  • Memory
  • Very High Memory
  • Ultra High Memory
  • GPU
  • AI Optimized
  • Storage Optimized
  • Confidential Compute
  • Generations of CPU profiles
  • Profiles for Intel, AMD, and s390x processor architectures
Supported images
  • Stock images
  • Instance add-ons include OS add-ons, control panel software, and database software
  • Custom images
  • Stock images
  • Custom images (includes image from volume)
  • Private catalog images
Platform integration IAM and resource group integration for a unified experience

Network differentiators

See the following table for the networking differences between classic and VPC.

Network comparison
This table has row and column headers. The row headers identify possible features. The column headers identify the differentiators between classic infrastructure and VPC infrastructure. To understand the differences between environments, go to the row and find the details for the feature that you're interested in.
Category Classic infrastructure VPC infrastructure
Location construct Data centers and Points of Delivery (PODs) Regional model that abstracts infrastructure so you don't need to worry about pod locations.
Network functions and services Physical and virtual appliances from multiple vendors

Cloud-native network functions:

  • VPNs
  • Load Balancer as a Service (LBaaS)
  • VPC isolation
  • Multiple vNIC instances
  • Larger subnet sizes
IP addresses IPv6 addresses supported IPv4 addresses only
Gateway routing

Handled natively by IBM data center routers, or use a network appliance:

  • Virtual Router Appliance
  • Vyatta
  • Juniper vSRX
  • Fortinet FSA
 Public gateway and floating IP services handle traffic routing.
Network address translation (NAT)

Use a virtual or physical network appliance:

  • Vyatta
  • Juniper vSRX
  • Fortinet FSA
  • Fortinet vFSA
  • Bring Your Own Gateway Appliance (BYOGWA)
 Supported through floating IP addresses and public gateway functions
IPsec Virtual Private Network (VPN)

Use a virtual or physical network appliance:

  • Vyatta
  • Juniper vSRX
  • Fortinet FSA
  • Fortinet vFSA
  • BYOGWA
 Supported by the VPN-as-a-service offering
Elastic load balancing Cloud Load Balancer Load Balancer for VPC
Global load balancing Cloud Internet Services, Citrix Netscaler VPX Cloud Internet Services
Hybrid connectivity

Direct Link for direct private connectivity from on-premises:

  • Virtual network appliances
  • Physical network appliances (Vyatta, Juniper vSRX, Fortinet FSA, Fortinet vFSA, and BYOGWA)

Connectivity options for on-premises and classic infrastructure resources:

  • Direct Link 2.0
  • Transit Gateway
  • VPC VPN

Storage differentiators

See the following table for the storage differences between classic and VPC.

Storage comparison
This table has column headers. The column headers identify the differentiators between classic infrastructure and VPC infrastructure storage. To understand the differences, find the feature in the classic infrastructure column and compare it with the corresponding VPC infrastructure column.
Classic infrastructure VPC infrastructure

A robust set of storage services, Block Storage for Classic (Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI)), and File Storage for Classic (Network File System (NFS)-based) offerings. Server-side agent-based Backup service with dedicated vault.

  • Snapshot support for both offerings.
  • Cross-regional replication.
  • Adjustable input/output operations per second (IOPS) limits and increasable capacity.
  • Encryption at rest with provider- or customer-managed keys.
  • Volume duplication and data refresh from parent volume.

Block Storage for VPC provides primary boot disks (with basic lifecycle management), and secondary data volumes. File Storage for VPC provides NFS-based file shares.

  • Snapshot and backup support for block volumes and file shares.
  • Zonal and cross-regional replication for file shares.
  • Adjustable IOPS and increasable capacity.
  • Encryption at rest with provider- or customer-managed keys.
  • Optional encryption in transit for block volumes and file shares.
  • Optional cross-account authorizations for encryption keys and file share access.

Security differentiators

See the following table for the security differences between classic and VPC.

Security comparison
This table has column headers. The column headers identify the differentiators between classic infrastructure and VPC infrastructure security options. To understand the differences, find the feature in the classic infrastructure column and compare it with the corresponding VPC infrastructure column.
Classic infrastructure VPC infrastructure
Vyatta, Fortigate, Juniper vSRX, Security Groups for virtual servers Security groups, Network Access Control Lists (ACLs)

API differentiators

See the following table for the API differences between classic and VPC.

API comparison
Classic infrastructure VPC infrastructure
Existing SoftLayer API (SLAPI) New developer-friendly, REST-based API

Next steps

To review all the VPC infrastructure capabilities, see About virtual private cloud. To start exploring infrastructure overall, see Building your infrastructure.