Comparing IBM Cloud Classic and VPC infrastructure environments
Compare the key differences between IBM Cloud® infrastructure environments to decide which one is best for the workloads and applications.
If we aren't familiar with the environment types, review the following descriptions.
- Classic infrastructure is our 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 our new IaaS platform, based on software-defined networking and ideal for cloud-native applications.
Classic infrastructure and VPC infrastructure are cost neutral, so you can focus on what environment best meets your needs.
Compute differentiators
See the following table for the compute differences between classic and VPC.
Category Classic Infrastructure VPC Infrastructure Services Full catalog of services, such as Bare Metal Servers, Virtual Servers instances, VMware, SAP Virtual Servers instances only Performance and availability Better availability achievable through zone architecture Pricing Hourly and monthly billing, plus suspend billing features Hourly, suspend billing, and sustained usage discount Virtual server families Public, dedicated, transient, reserved Public only Profiles All profiles, including the GPU profiles Balanced, compute, memory profiles with higher RAM and vCPU options Supported images Full set of pre-stock images, plus custom images Limited set of pre-stock images, plus the ability to import a custom image 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.
Category Classic infrastructure VPC infrastructure Location construct Data centers and PODs
(Might require VLAN spanning to connect two different pods or data centers, and purchasing gateways to control and route traffic)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 Use a virtual or physical network appliance (Virtual Router Appliance, Vyatta, Juniper vSRX, Fortinet FSA) Traffic routing is handled by public gateway and floating IP services Network address translation (NAT) Use a virtual or physical network appliance (Virtual Router Appliance, Vyatta, Juniper vSRX, Fortinet FSA) Supported by the Bring-your-own-IP (BYOIP) functionality IPsec Virtual private network (VPN) Use a virtual or physical network appliance (Virtual Router Appliance, Vyatta, Juniper vSRX, Fortinet FSA) 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 MPX Cloud Internet Services Hybrid connectivity NAT solution to bridge between IBM Cloud and your IT environment Bring your own private IP address without NAT or IPSec tunnels
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.
Classic infrastructure VPC infrastructure Robust set of storage services, block storage (iSCSI), and file storage (NFS-based) offerings Block storage as primary boot disk (with basic lifecycle management), and secondary data volumes
Note: Volume encryption is available during provisioning.
Security differentiators
See the following table for the security differences between classic and VPC.
Classic infrastructure VPC infrastructure Vyatta, Fortigate, Juniper vSRX, Security Groups for VSIs Security groups, Network access control lists (ACLs)
API differentiators
See the following table for the API differences between classic and VPC.
Classic infrastructure VPC infrastructure Existing SoftLayer API (SLAPI) New developer-friendly, REST-based API
Next steps
To review all our VPC infrastructure capabilities, see About virtual private cloud. To start exploring infrastructure overall, see Building your infrastructure.