Run IBM Cloud Virtual Servers at the lowest price per vCPU: Try new Flex profiles in Beta

IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC deliver a wide variety of profile families to choose from – all workload optimized with pre-configured vCPU, RAM, bandwidth, and storage properties. Seven profile families to be exact, all ideal for a range of workloads – from midsize databases and batch processing to in-memory and RAM-intensive demands.

But what happens if the provisioning options seem too complex for your operational requirements? What if you’re running generic workloads that don’t necessarily demand exact, preset configurations? What if you just need to spin up a virtual server instance at the lowest price possible as quickly as possible?

For those questions, we’re pleased to announce the beta program for Flex profiles on IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC is now available. Clients can now preview our first simplified provisioning profiles created exclusively for friction-less deployment with better price per performance at the lowest price option per vCPU when compared to specific processor generations.

Is the Flex profile beta program right for me?

Good question. Let’s break down some key features and capabilities. Your baseline hardware would run on IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC – and land on one of the latest generations of Intel or AMD processors, including Intel^® Xeon^® 2^nd Gen Gold 6248 and Platinum 8260 processors, Intel^® Xeon^® 4^th Gen 8474C processors, or AMD^® EPYC^®  3^rd Gen 7763 processors. In addition to industry leading microarchitecture, everything else stays the same and your workloads will run on our developer-friendly virtual private cloud (VPC) platform with fast-provisioning, high network speeds, and the most secure, software-defined resources available inside IBM.

Keep in mind that when provisioning a Flex profile, although there will be 100% core utilization, you won’t be able to choose which processor hardware you land on, so it's important to consider your performance requirements before entering this program. Check out the below. Your options are four, pre-set, NUMA-aligned profile families (your amount of vCPU instances, RAM, and bandwidth). Instances are booted with Open Virtual Machine Format (OVMF) and run in Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) mode for added security.

• (NEW) Nano profiles are ideal for small performance requirements and workloads that don’t require a large amount of compute or memory.
  
  
• Compute profiles are ideal for CPU-intensive demands with moderate to high web traffic, such as production batch processing and front-end web servers.
  
  
• Balanced profiles are for a mix of performance and scalability -- ideal for more common workloads.
  
  
• Memory profiles are best for memory-intensive workloads, like large caching and database applications, or in-memory analytics.
  
  

If you’re an existing IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC client and would like to migrate to Flex profiles, you can easily re-size. We recommend a quick backup or “snapshot” beforehand. 

Flex profiles on IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC are ideal for:

• IBM Cloud clients who don’t require a specific processor generation and are looking for a more price-effective virtual server solution.
• IBM Cloud clients who don’t want to migrate every time a processor generation reaches end-of-life.
• IBM Cloud clients concerned about capacity related constraints.

Overall, we think this beta program is a smart entry point onto quality virtual machines for those looking for a more streamlined provisioning experience that’s simple, quick, and more cost-effective for their open performance requirements.

Getting started 

1. Do you have an IBM Cloud account? You’ll need one to establish your beta program participation. 
   
   
2. Next, contact our beta program management team to apply for beta program access.
   
   
3. After ensuring your workload placement goals are ideal for this program, you’ll receive a formal acceptance email and be “allow-listed” into the beta program provisioning catalog with location deployment access. 
   
   This beta program is open for registration until 9/15/25, and with it you’ll get full access to IBM Cloud Support. After the beta program, your Flex profile virtual server instances will need to be restarted into our production-level environment. Your billing will initiate upon general availability, by usage. The Beta program for Flex profiles is available in all IBM Cloud Multizone Regions (MZRs). General availability for Flex profiles is planned for September 2025.

Learn more

See all available instance profiles, review supporting OSs, understand processor generations, explore feature capabilities, and follow along with provisioning guides inside our Flex profiles for IBM Cloud Virtual Servers VPC cloud documentation.