back to article IBM to power down Power-powered virtual private cloud, GPU-accelerated options

IBM has given users of its IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC on Power 80 days to find a new home. A Wednesday announcement from Big Blue advises it “has decided to consolidate its Power Systems offerings in the IBM Cloud.” The IT giant right now offers two Power-powered cloud options. One is IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Couldn't they have waited until the streamlined POWER offerings supported Linux?

    It's not like Linux has a tiny share of the enterprise-level operating system market. Is it IBM's intent to incent their current POWER customers to look at competitors that can currently support Linux, and avoid the last minute will-they-or-won't-they IBM Linux support concerns and rushed migrations?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Couldn't they have waited until the streamlined POWER offerings supported Linux?

      Dearth of Power offerings in cloud has always been a drawback of the architecture -- as a Linux Power user this is quite concerning, IBM was one of the only major players with it available at scale in cloud.

      I do have a couple of small Linux on Power VPS instances over at Integricloud, but I don't like to rely on only one vendor in case things ever go TITSUP. Anyone know of other Power cloud providers that could be called on here where IBM is (yet again) screwing over its paying customers? I'm especially interested in EU region offerings...

      And Linux support is an absolute must.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Couldn't they have waited until the streamlined POWER offerings supported Linux?

        Skytap has an offering for Linux on Power. Not sure it's they have a DC in Europe though.

        https://www.skytap.com/product/cloud-platform/power-systems-aix-linux-ibmi/

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Couldn't they have waited until the streamlined POWER offerings supported Linux?

          On that page, Skytap has what looks suspiciously like a map of its worldwide datacenters, which seems to show a DC in the UK (Hey, thank God someone found a use for Slough, amirite??).

          There doesn't seem to be an actual list of DC locations offering their Power-based cloud services, but that map looks awfully specific for a general "Hey, we've got datacenters all over to support you" marketing claim.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Re: Couldn't they have waited until the streamlined POWER offerings supported Linux?

      If only IBM had bought a company with decent Linux credentials then they might have been able to avoid this embarrassing situation.

      1. Yes Me Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Couldn't they have waited until the streamlined POWER offerings supported Linux?

        If only IBM hadn't handed over decision making to pointy-haired accountants some years ago, they might have been able to notice that dumping Linux-based clients before supporting Linux was not the brightest idea they've had this century.

        Come on Arvind Krishna, you know better than this!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gosh

    What an unlikely story. It's almost as though the cloud leaves you dependent on the whim of some faceless corporates' decisions.

  3. YetAnotherJoeBlow
    WTF?

    As usual

    Yet again we subject ourselves to problems we already solved in the nineties. I just love all things cloudy.

    What the hell is IBM smoking? Why shit on your paying customers? Nothing like manufacturing a problem where there is none.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: As usual

      "Why shit on your paying customers?"

      Maybe they're running out of employees to shit on.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: As usual

        Nah.

        They have one left. His name is Dave, and he sits in a little broom cupboard somewhere. They only let him out to play when things get really bad.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Paris Hilton

      Why shit on your paying customers?

      Because they’re the only people with their mouths still open.

      Paris, because...

  4. Hans 1
    Facepalm

    Marketing Types taking control?

    If they do this, they will be considered unreliable, in cloud, trust is paramount, IBM cloud is dead, well done!

    This reeks like some marketing scumbag pulling the strings and killing IBM in the cloud.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Marketing Types taking control?

      No, any competent marketing type would not force current IBM clients to look at competitors before they had a new offering within the IBM family in place that they could migrate those clients to.

      This is some finance type that found that IBM needs to A) cut costs and B) "Linux-lovin" Power offerings cost X to maintain while "Linux-loathing" Power costs 0.89 X to keep running.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "staff with knowledge of older platforms"

    "staff with knowledge of older platforms" is an interesting euphemism...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why moving to the cloud is one the riskiest things your organisation can do...

    Reason #472.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why moving to the cloud is one the riskiest things your organisation can do...

      Agreed, those horseless carriages will never catch on either. Best to stay with what you know. Progress and all that stuff is dangerous witchcraft

      1. doublelayer Silver badge

        Re: Why moving to the cloud is one the riskiest things your organisation can do...

        Not exactly. The cloud isn't new technology--it's a new packaging of existing technology that is a lot like the really old packaging of similar technology. However, I don't think this story is really good evidence not to use the cloud. What it is is really good evidence to avoid lock in, but cloud doesn't necessarily mean lock in if done correctly and you can get lock in in other ways. For example, if you base too much of your systems on something the manufacturers can cut support for, you can find yourself unable to replace broken parts and looking at high costs for new equipment. Just like a cloud vendor dropping support for something, this can really mess up your day.

        Cloud may not necessarily involve this. My cloud usage has almost always been running my own VMs without using provider-specific software, and I can move these VMs between providers if and when I want with time the primary cost. On the other hand, cloud has lots of options for getting locked in or becoming too reliant on something you don't control. For that reason, any good IT system will consider these risks and have backup plans. In many cases, the backup plan will be to not use those features and, if they're useful, implement them themselves. That is not a bad backup plan for most places.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Why moving to the cloud is one the riskiest things your organisation can do...

          It's always a balancing act. I have experience companies focusing on avoiding (perceived) lock-in and spending 10x as much avoiding it as they would need to in order to get out of it at a later time. They then also end up locked in to 1 or 2 internal IT people who are the only ones who know how the damn system works.

    2. Bitsminer Silver badge

      Re: Why moving to the cloud is one the riskiest things your organisation can do...

      Reason #472. There, FTFY.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    AS400 ?

    But but but, where will I put my legacy unkillable AS400 ????

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: AS400 ?

      "unkillable AS400". I like that.

      For past 27 years, it never failed on me.

      1. YetAnotherJoeBlow

        Re: AS400 ?

        I had a System/38 mod 8 a long time ago - It was rock solid. Strangest OS I have ever seen. I hated RPG 3, but man could you implement systems quickly.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: AS400 ?

          “...Strangest OS I have ever seen”

          Not a windows user then.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    IBM is finished

    Anyone ever try their cloud? Every other web page and link is broken. Signing up for a paid account with a credit card is incredibly difficult. Then try launching a bare metal server. You’ll keep getting errors every time you try launching one, only to realize that you’ve launched them all and are being billed for it. It’s like the whole thing is strung together with glue and bubble gum. And it’s been this way for years.

    And you’d think they would have long fired the head of their cloud unit for overseeing such a broken mess. But nooooo they’ve promoted him to CEO in a pathetic attempt to have their own Satya Nadella moment. Now they’re totally fucked!

    As a former IBMer it’s really sad to see this all play out. But it all makes sense to me now. It’s a company that’s amazing at pushing the boundaries of fundamental computing tech but has no clue how to create a user experience or develop new successful product lines organically. Or at least not since the 80s.

  9. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Odd

    Odd. IBM made a big big deal about POWER servers with GPU running Linux. From what I've heard, POWER is pretty good performance-per-watt-wise; ARM went at it from one direction, taking low-powered chips and bumping up per-core speed (hopefully without increasing power too much..) and large number of cores (recently 80 cores). POWER chips have always been fairly quick but last several years put on a serious power diet (also 80 cores or so).

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