IBM Cloud wins Best Cloud Infrastructure at the 2022–23 Cloud Awards

IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers for VPC was recognized as the 2022–2023 Cloud Awards winner in the category Best Cloud Infrastructure.

Now in its 12th year of celebrating cloud-based innovations across a wide range of industries, the Cloud Awards program accepts entries worldwide, including the US, Canada, Australasia, EMEA and UK.

“The Cloud Awards experienced very fierce competition in its twelfth year. All chosen winners demonstrated remarkable commitment to the future of cloud computing, worthy of being acknowledged and celebrated.”

— James Williams, Head of Operations for The Cloud Awards

About the product:

IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers for VPC transformed our most popular product, Bare Metal Servers, to exceed the evolving needs of our customers in highly regulated industries. Built for mission-critical workloads in the financial services and healthcare industries, IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers for VPC provides dedicated servers built for high performance in a scalable network. Users can extend or migrate on-premises workloads to our cloud with minimal retooling and granular controls, and scale out in minutes. A purpose-built focus on VMware and SAP differs us from the competition, benefited by 100Gbps of network bandwidth and eliminating IP restrictions. The project, which has been underway since early 2021, focused on ease of configuration, rapid deployment, and scalability, utilizing many rounds of user testing while in Beta availability. Meeting consistently with VMware and other sponsor users, the team was able to significantly simplify the experience while providing in-context help and support.

From the Cloud Award Judges:

“We were impressed to see something different in Bare Metal Servers for VPC. We liked to see how, unlike with traditional SaaS offerings, Bare Metal Servers for VPC is tightly bound to the underlying hardware it is delivered on, and IBM has strong, established processes that offer the latest solutions from all hardware partners. Over 8 months since the initial release Bare Metal Servers for VPC have introduced 8 new hardware configurations, support for 5 major operating systems, and have operationalized 1000 servers across the 8 global data centers! Remarkable and a well-deserved win. Congratulations from everyone at The Cloud Awards.”

— Annabelle Whittall, Lead Judge at The Cloud Awards

Differentiated by design:

What sets Bare Metal Servers for VPC ahead of our competition is our purpose-built focus on enterprise workloads and client value experience innovations:

• Improved Billing Model: While Bare Metal Classic was monthly only, the new VPC release is pay-as-you-go, with sustained usage discounts offering flexibility to our clients and ensuring they are always getting the best deal with minimal effort on their part.
• Provisioning Experience Enhancements: Ordering times have been reduced by 2300%, going from 2–4 hours to an average of 10 minutes. The new offering is also integrated with Terraform automation for maximum flexibility and ease of use.
• Networking Speeds: Bare Metal on VPC has an increased network speed of 300%, increasing from 25gbps to 100gbps with the additional benefit of private networking.

“We are honored to have received this award, which recognizes business growth and innovation. With such fierce competition, being named a winner is a special honor. We are thrilled that IBM has been recognized for contributing to the innovation of cloud technologies. Our IaaS Compute Design team works tirelessly to ensure that we are giving our clients a best in class user experience and we are excited to see that work being recognized by industry leaders & peers.”

— Ty Tyner, Director of Design: IBM Cloud IaaS & Data Services

Congratulations to the winning team:

Design

Ty Tyner, Josef Bodine, Austin Edwards, Jessica Clavin, Maria Gillcoat, Wyatt Michel, Alena Bushuyeva, Josie Zuo

Product Management

Adam Ngo, Stephanie Wing

Development

Alejandro Ortiz, Eduardo Abe, Kara-marie Greco, Amartey Pearson, Umamaheswararao Karyampudi

About the Cloud Awards:

The Cloud Awards is an international program which has been recognizing and honoring industry leaders, innovators and organizational transformation in cloud computing since 2011. The awards are open to large, small, established and start-up organizations from across the entire globe, with an aim to find and celebrate the pioneers who will shape the future of the Cloud as we move into 2023 and beyond. Categories include the Software as a Service award, Most Promising Start-Up, and “Best in Mobile” Cloud Solution.

Winners are selected by a judging panel of international industry experts. Hundreds of organizations entered, with entries coming from across the globe, covering the Americas, Australia, Europe, and the Middle East. You can view the full list of winners and finalists here: https://www.cloud-awards.com/2022-2023-cloud-awards-finalists/.

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Bill Grady is Director and Head of Design for IBM Cloud based in Austin, TX. The above article is personal and does not necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies, or opinions.