--- name: vpc-vsi-profile-details-flexible title: General purpose - Flex description: The general purpose Flex virtual server profiles (nano, balanced, compute, and memory) are built atop the 2nd and 4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors and AMD’s 3rd generation EPYC processors. You can place Flex profiles on any available generation of these processors in a specified region. last-updated: 2026-07-01 --- > ## Documentation Index > The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?format=markdown > The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt > Use these files to discover more information as needed. # General purpose - Flex {: #flexible-profiles-virtual-servers} The general purpose Flex virtual server profiles (nano, balanced, compute, and memory) are built atop the 2nd and 4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors and AMD’s 3rd generation EPYC processors. You can place Flex profiles on any available generation of these processors in a specified region. {: shortdesc} Flex profiles offer a broad set of capabilities and scale from 1 vCPU up to 64 vCPUs. Virtual servers with a Flex profile are configured with a baseline CPU family regardless of hypervisor host CPU family. With a Flex profile, you can't select hardware or CPU family. The hardware that is selected is based on hardware availability. {: note} ## Operating systems {: #flexible-profiles-operating-systems} Flex profiles support the following operating systems. * Linux * Windows ## Processor generation {: #flexible-profiles-processor-generation} * Intel 2nd Generation Xeon® Gold 6248 and Platinum 8260 Scalable processors * Intel 4th Generation Xeon® 8474C Scalable processor * AMD 3rd generation EPYC 7763 processor Keep in mind that you don't have control over which hardware that a Flex profile provisions. ## Availability {: #flexible-profiles-availability} * Status: GA * Regions: All ## Capabilities {: #flexible-profiles-features-capabilities} See the following capabilities for Flex profiles. * Core type: Flex * Burstable: Yes (with select profiles) * Dedicated host: No * Hyperthreading: Yes (SMT-2) * Secure boot: No * Confidential computing: No * Live migration: Yes * Instance storage: No * NUMA Pinning: Yes - NIC capabilities: - Max single NIC throughput: up to 25 Gbps - Bandwidth pooling: No * [Volume bandwidth allocation method](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-block-storage-bandwidth&format=markdown#attached-block-vol-bandwidth): `pooled` by default; it can be updated to `weighted`. ## VM configuration {: #flexible-profiles-vm-configuration} See the following list for VM configuration. * Hardware type: i440fx * Cloud networking: virtio * Block boot volume: virtio - Exception: vscsi for most Windows-based instances. However, Windows instances that run on second-generation storage volumes, and Windows instances with secure boot enabled that run Windows Server 2022 or newer, use virtio. * Block data volumes: virtio * Instance storage: virtio ## Instance profiles {: #flexible-profiles-instance-profiles} The following Flex profiles are available when you provision a virtual server instance and are subject to change. ### Nano {: #nano-profiles-flexible} | Instance profile | vCPU | Memory (GiB) | Total instance bandwidth (Gbps)| % vCPU share options (default 100%) | |------------------|------|--------------|-------------------------------|--------------| | nxf-1x1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 10% 25% 50% | | nxf-1x2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 10% 25% 50% | | nxf-1x4 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 25% 50% | | nxf-1x8 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 50% | | nxf-2x1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 10% 25% 50% | | nxf-2x2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 10% 25% 50% | {: caption="Nano flex profile options for virtual servers" caption-side="bottom"} ### Balanced {: #balanced-profiles-flexible} | Instance profile | vCPU | Memory (GiB) | Total instance bandwidth (Gbps)| % vCPU share options (default 100%) | |------------------|------|--------------|-------------------------------|--------------| | bxf-2x8 | 2 | 8 | 4 | 50% | | bxf-4x16 | 4 | 16 | 8 | 50% | | bxf-8x32 | 8 | 32 | 16 | 50% | | bxf-16x64 | 16 | 64 | 32 | 50% | | bxf-24x96 | 24 | 96 | 48 | N/A | | bxf-32x128 | 32 | 128 | 64 | N/A | | bxf-48x192 | 48 | 192 | 80 | N/A | | bxf-64x256 | 64 | 256 | 80 | N/A | {: caption="Balanced flex profile options for virtual servers" caption-side="bottom"} ### Compute {: #compute-profiles-flexible} | Instance profile | vCPU | Memory (GiB) | Total instance bandwidth (Gbps)| % vCPU share options (default 100%) | |------------------|------|--------------|-------------------------------|--------------| | cxf-2x4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 25% 50% | | cxf-4x8 | 4 | 8 | 8 | 25% 50% | | cxf-8x16 | 8 | 16 | 16 | 25% 50% | | cxf-16x32 | 16 | 32 | 32 | 25% 50% | | cxf-24x48 | 24 | 48 | 48 | N/A | | cxf-32x64 | 32 | 64 | 64 | N/A | | cxf-48x96 | 48 | 96 | 80 | N/A | | cxf-64x128 | 64 | 128 | 80 | N/A | {: caption="Compute flex profile options for virtual servers" caption-side="bottom"} ### Memory {: #memory-profiles-flexible} | Instance profile | vCPU | Memory (GiB) | Total instance bandwidth (Gbps)| % vCPU share options (default 100%) | |------------------|------|--------------|-------------------------------|--------------| | mxf-2x16 | 2 | 16 | 4 | N/A | | mxf-4x32 | 4 | 32 | 8 | N/A | | mxf-8x64 | 8 | 64 | 16 | N/A | | mxf-16x128 | 16 | 128 | 32 | N/A | | mxf-24x192 | 24 | 192 | 48 | N/A | | mxf-32x256 | 32 | 256 | 64 | N/A | | mxf-48x384 | 48 | 384 | 80 | N/A | | mxf-64x512 | 64 | 512 | 80 | N/A | {: caption="Memory flex profile options for virtual servers" caption-side="bottom"} ## Limits {: #flexible-profiles-limits} An instance has a limit for the number of volumes and virtual network interfaces that can be attached. This limit is based on the size of the instance. | Number of vCPUs | Max volumes | Max vNICs | | --------------- | ----------- | --------- | | 1 - 4 | 12 | 1 | | 8+ | 12 | 2 | {: caption="Flex profile family limits for for maximum volumes and maximum network interfaces" caption-side="bottom"}