Today, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve officially expanded the availability of IBM Power Systems Virtual Servers to our IBM Cloud data centers in London and Toronto.

In addition to Washington, D.C., Dallas, TX, and Frankfurt, Germany, our AIX and IBM i users can now expand their Power IT resources and reach by deploying both on-premises and off-premises in the UK and Canada. Across all locations, we’re offering the same scale-out LPARs (up to 15 Cores and now up to 1TB of memory) and enterprise LPARs (up to 143 cores and now up to 16TB of memory).

We deployed these cost-conscious virtual servers to help our AIX and IBM i clients enhance a variety of on-premises workloads with the scalability, flexibility, and efficiency of the cloud:

1. Test with Power in the cloud: To use as a separate and secure sandbox environment for testing and developing workloads or to try new OS versions and next-gen hardware.
2. Mission-critical Power workloads in the cloud: To run enterprise applications in a secure public cloud.
3. Disaster recovery in the IBM Cloud: To help ensure disaster recovery continuity without doubling down on commitments.

Let’s take a closer look at disaster recovery workloads for IBM Power Systems Virtual Servers.

Disaster recovery solutions with IBM Power Systems Virtual Servers

Disaster recovery (DR) has traditionally been considered a technology safeguard without a clear return on investment. But the business benefits of cloud computing are now driving the adoption of disaster recovery solutions in the cloud.

Today’s disasters come in many varieties, from naturally occurring events (such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods) to man-made threats (such as employee sabotage, hacking, and data theft). Downtime is expensive. The impact of a single disaster is a risk that needs to be averted—and one that can be mitigated through proper oversight and the right technological approach.

Our IBM Power Systems AIX and IBM i clients that need to build out their own DR solutions can now do so by leveraging IBM Cloud—most importantly, at more affordable costs. A few IBM Power to IBM Cloud DR examples include the following:

• If you’re running a mission-critical IBM Power Systems workload that needs DR to raise the level of security/reliability for your on-premises data center(s).
• If you’re looking for a DR solution in a different geography where you don’t currently have a data center.
• If you’re looking to help reduce risks without acquiring or growing your data center capital investments.
• If you’re looking to use a cloud DR solution in your long-term cloud migration strategy.

Let’s take a closer look at that last example.

Real world disaster-recovery example: IBM Power Systems Virtual Servers

Recently, an IBM Power Systems client in the enterprise retail industry wanted to move to implement a cloud-first strategy while maintaining their partnership with IBM Cloud (a platform they knew and trusted). One of the first key elements of their cloud strategy was to set up a disaster recovery cloud solution:

• The challenge: Avoid acquiring data center space, cap-ex, and staff for a single-use DR deployment through the use of IBM Cloud.
• The plan: Begin their cloud journey by first setting up a DR infrastructure in the IBM Cloud, then leverage that public cloud infrastructure when migrating their on-premises, production data center at a later time.
• The solution: IBM Power Systems Virtual Servers, including 30+ LPARs on one virtual server instance, a custom AIX image following by IBM i, and connectivity into existing x86 content on IBM Cloud.

The hybrid cloud strategy this company took gave them the ability to not only have a cloud disaster strategy in place, but it also gave them IBM Cloud experience and preparation experience for their eventual full cloud migration. Because of the agility of the public IBM Cloud, this client was able to roll out their existing IBM Power Systems AIX and IBM i data in a controlled, secure cloud environment with minimal risk—and at the pace they preferred—while maintaining a more manageable op-ex vs. cap-ex balance. 

Get started

You can now configure, price, and quote IBM Power Systems Virtual Severs from directly inside the IBM Cloud Catalog.

Get technical

Read up on managing, creating, and deploying IBM Power Systems Virtual Servers inside our IBM Cloud Docs.

Learn more

To explore popular LPAR configurations, customization options, solutions—or to chat with one of our experts—visit the IBM Power Systems Virtual Servers page.