General purpose instance profiles - Intel Gen 3

The general purpose 3rd generation virtual server profiles (balanced, compute, and memory) are built atop the 4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors. This generation provides NUMA pinning and increased overall instance throughput up to 200 Gbps. These profiles also include secure boot virtual servers as an option.

The general-purpose profiles can also be paired with a corresponding dedicated host. This solution allows for single-tenant hypervisors that run workloads from a single IBM Cloud® account.

Operating Systems

Linux
Windows

Processor Generation

Intel 8474C - 4th Generation Xeon® Scalable processor

Availability

Status: Generally available
Regions: All

Capabilities

Core type: Dedicated
Dedicated host: Yes
Hyperthreading: Yes (SMT-2)
Secure boot: Yes, select profiles
Confidential computing: No
Live migration: Yes
Instance storage: Yes
NUMA Pinning: Yes
Volume bandwidth allocation method: weighted by default, it can be updated to pooled.

VM Configuration

Hardware type: i440fx
- Utilizes Q35 hardware type when it's running in secure boot mode
Cloud networking: virtio
Block boot volume: virtio
- Exception: vscsi for Windows-based virtual server instances
Block data volumes: virtio
Instance storage: virtio

Instance profiles

Balanced

Balanced instance profile options, Gen 3 Intel
Profile	vCPUs / Cores / NUMA Domains	Memory (GiB)	Bandwidth cap (Gbps)	Instance storage (Qty x GB)
bx3d-2x10	2 / 1 / 1	10	4	1x65
bx3d-4x20	4 / 2 / 1	20	8	1x130
bx3d-8x40	8 / 4 / 1	40	16	1x260
bx3d-16x80	16 / 8 / 1	80	32	1x520
bx3d-24x120	24 / 12 / 1	120	48	1x780
bx3d-32x160	32 / 16 / 2	160	64	2x520
bx3d-48x240	48 / 24 / 2	240	96	2x780
bx3d-64x320	64 / 32 / 2	320	128	2x1024
bx3d-96x480	96 / 48 / 2	480	192	2x1560
bx3d-128x640	128 / 64 / 2	640	200	2x2080
bx3d-176x880	176 / 88 / 2	880	200	2x2860

Compute

Compute instance profile options, Gen 3 Intel
Profile	vCPUs / Cores / NUMA domains	Memory (GiB)	Bandwidth cap (Gbps)	Instance storage (Qty x GB)
cx3d-2x5	2 / 1 / 1	5	4	1x65
cx3d-4x10	4 / 2 / 1	10	8	1x130
cx3d-8x20	8 / 4 / 1	20	16	1x260
cx3d-16x40	16 / 8 / 1	40	32	1x520
cx3d-24x60	24 / 12 / 1	60	48	1x780
cx3d-32x80	32 / 16 / 2	80	64	2x520
cx3d-48x120	48 / 24 / 2	120	96	2x780
cx3d-64x160	64 / 32 / 2	160	128	2x1024
cx3d-96x240	96 / 48 / 2	240	192	2x1560
cx3d-128x320	128 / 64 / 2	320	200	2x2080
cx3d-176x440	176 / 88 / 2	440	200	2x2860

Memory

Memory instance profile options, Gen 3 Intel
Profile	vCPUs / Cores / NUMA domains	Memory (GiB)	Bandwidth cap (Gbps)	Instance storage (Qty x GB)
mx3d-2x20	2 / 1 / 1	20	4	1x65
mx3d-4x40	4 / 2 / 1	40	8	1x130
mx3d-8x80	8 / 4 / 1	80	16	1x260
mx3d-16x160	16 / 8 / 1	160	32	1x520
mx3d-24x240	24 / 12 / 1	240	48	1x780
mx3d-32x320	32 / 16 / 2	320	64	2x520
mx3d-48x480	48 / 24 / 2	480	96	2x780
mx3d-64x640	64 / 32 / 2	640	128	2x1024
mx3d-96x960	96 / 48 / 2	960	192	2x1560
mx3d-128x1280	128 / 64 / 2	1280	200	2x2080
mx3d-176x1760	176 / 88 / 2	1760	200	2x2860

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.

General purpose profile family limits for vCPU, maximum volumes, and maximum network interfaces
Number of vCPUs	Max volumes	Max vNICs
2-16	12	5
17-48	12	10
49+	12	15

Boot volume profiles

Only first-generation volumes from the tiered and custom volume profile families can be used as boot volumes for the Intel Gen 3 instances if secure boot is needed. Second-generation boot volumes with the sdp profile do not support secure boot.

Dedicated host profiles

Dedicated hosts allow users to provision a single-tenant host server and then provision virtual server instances of the corresponding family on the dedicated host.

General purpose dedicated host profile options, Gen 3 Intel
Profile	vCPUs / Cores	Memory (GiB)	Instance storage	Sockets per host (NUMA)	Supported instance types
bx3d-host-176x880	176 / 88	608	2x 3.2 TB	2	bx3d (all)
cx3d-host-176x440	176 / 88	608	2x 3.2 TB	2	cx3d (all)
mx3d-host-176x1760	176 / 88	1760	2x 3.2 TB	2	mx3d (all)