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. Check out 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 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 Better availability achievable through zone architecture
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, 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: OS add-ons, control panel software, 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 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, LBaaS) (VPC isolation, dedicated resources carved out of public cloud, with more options for VPNs, LBaaS, multiple vNIC instances, and larger subnet sizes)
IP addresses	IPv6 addresses supported	IPv4 addresses only
Gateway routing	Handled natively by IBM datacenter routers or use a virtual or physical network appliance (Virtual Router Appliance, Vyatta, Juniper vSRX, Fortinet FSA) to customize and manage yourself	Traffic routing is handled by public gateway and floating IP services
Network address translation (NAT)	Use a virtual or physical network appliance (Vyatta, Juniper vSRX, Fortinet FSA, Fortinet vFSA, and BYOGWA)	Supported via floating IP's and public gateways functionality
IPsec Virtual Private Network (VPN)	Use a virtual or physical network appliance (Vyatta, Juniper vSRX, Fortinet FSA, Fortinet vFSA and 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 and physical network appliances (Vyatta, Juniper vSRX, Fortinet FSA, Fortinet vFSA, and BYOGWA) for further control and observability of the hybrid connection	Direct Link 2.0, Transit Gateway and VPC VPN Note: You can enable your VPC to access classic infrastructure resources.

Storage differentiators

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

Storage comparison
Classic infrastructure	VPC infrastructure
Robust set of storage services, Block Storage for Classic (iSCSI), and File Storage for Classic (NFS-based) offerings. Server-side agent-based Backup service with dedicated vault. Snapshot support for both offerings. Cross-regional replication. Adjustable IOPS and increasable capacity. Encryption at rest with provider- or customer-managed encryption. 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 encryption. 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
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.