Test-Driving IBM’s SmartCloud Enterprise Infrastructure as a Service: Part 1
Updated 4/26/2011 with a link to part two: Test-Driving IBM’s SmartCloud Enterprise Infrastructure as a Service: Part 2 - Spring 2011 Promotion Free Trial (under construction)
Updated 4/11/2011 with Spring Enterprise Promo screen capture and link, plus minor reorganization.
Updated 4/10/2011 with additional software image and monthly cost estimate details, as well as Amazon Web Service compute type and Windows Azure instance details.
IBM’s Hidden SmartCloud Enterprise Development Pages
Missing from the press event’s SmartCloud CloudForum page is a link to the SmartCloud Development Pages, which are designed to let you estimate monthly SmartCloud costs and get you started with a SmartCloud Spring Promo account.
Scrolling down exposes links to additional details, a button to sign up for the Spring Promo, and a button to estimate costs of three typical IaaS configurations plus a free-form custom configuration choice:
The Spring [Enterprise] Promo offers no charge access to basic services delivered by IBM’s Toronto datacenter from 4/8 until 6/11/2011:
Virtual Machine Instances and Persistent Storage Details
Server instance types carry codenames that remind me of cloud-conference sponsor categories: Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum:
| Virtual Machine Component 32-bit configuration | Copper | Bronze | Silver | Gold |
| Virtual CPUs @ 1.25 GHz | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Virtual Memory (GB) | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| Virtual Local Storage (GB) | 60 | 175 | 350 | 350 |
Amazon Web Services offers 32-bit images in Micro and Small types only:
| AWS Virtual Machine Type | Micro | Small |
| EC2 Compute Units (1 virtual core) | 1 | 1 |
| Virtual Memory (GB) | 0.613 | 1.7 |
| Virtual Local Storage (GB) | ? | 160 |
| Corresponding IBM Configuration | Copper |
Amazon’s Micro type offers two EC2 Compute Units to handle temporary usage bursts, subject to availability.
64-bit Instances
| IBM SCE Virtual Machine Component | Copper | Bronze | Silver | Gold | Platinum |
| Virtual CPUs @ 1.25 GHz | 2 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 16 |
| Virtual Memory (GB) | 4 | 4 | 8 | 16 | 16 |
| Virtual Local Storage (GB) | 60 | 850 | 1024 | 1024 | 2048 |
| Azure Virtual Machine Config. | Extra Small | Small | Medium | Large | Extra Large |
| Virtual CPUs @ 1.25* GHz | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 |
| Virtual Memory (GB) | 0.768 | 1.75 | 3.5 | 7 | 14 |
| Virtual Local Storage (GB) | 20 | 225 | 490 | 1000 | 2040 |
| Corresponding IBM Configuration | Bronze | Silver | Gold |
Amazon Web Services offers 64-bit configurations in Large, Extra Large, High Memory and High CPU types:
| AWS Virtual Machine Type | Large | Extra Large | High Mem | High CPU XL |
| EC2 Compute Units | 4 | 8 | 6.5 | 20 |
| Virtual Memory (GB) | 7.5 | 15 | 17.1 | 7 |
| Virtual Local Storage (GB) | 850 | 1690 | 420 | 1690 |
| Corresponding IBM Configuration | Silver | Gold | Platinum |
Note that IBM’s SLA is 99.5% availability, while AWS and Windows Azure offer 99.95%. Windows Azure requires two instances of a role for the SLA to be in effect.
Virtual Machines, Unreserved (Pay As You Go, PAYG)
32-bit configurations unreserved price per hour:
| CPUs | Copper | Bronze | Silver | Gold |
| With Red Hat Linux OS | $ 0.190 | $ 0.210 | $ 0.310 | $ 0.460 |
| With Novell SUSE Linux OS | $ 0.095 | $ 0.115 | $ 0.265 | $ 0.410 |
| With Microsoft Windows Server | $ 0.100 | $ 0.120 | $ 0.240 | $ 0.370 |
64-bit configurations unreserved price per hour:
| CPUs | Copper | Bronze | Silver | Gold | Platinum |
| With Red Hat Linux OS | $ 0.400 | $ 0.500 | $ 0.610 | $ 0.940 | $1.840 |
| With Novell SUSE Linux OS | $ 0.350 | $ 0.450 | $ 0.540 | $ 0.780 | $1.540 |
| With Microsoft Windows Server | $ 0.340 | $ 0.400 | $ 0.500 | $ 0.960 | $1.990 |
Virtual Machines, Reserved
32-bit configurations reserved price per hour (in addition to monthly reservation fee; see Reserved capacity package examples below):
| CPUs | Copper | Bronze | Silver | Gold |
| With Red Hat Linux OS | $ 0.154 | $ 0.165 | $ 0.220 | $ 0.300 |
| With Novell SUSE Linux OS | $ 0.059 | $ 0.070 | $ 0.175 | $ 0.250 |
| With Microsoft Windows Server | $ 0.064 | $ 0.075 | $ 0.150 | $ 0.210 |
64-bit configurations reserved price per hour (in addition to monthly reservation fee; see Reserved capacity package examples below):
| CPUs | Copper | Bronze | Silver | Gold | Platinum |
| With Red Hat Linux OS | $ 0.265 | $ 0.320 | $ 0.380 | $ 0.530 | $1.100 |
| With Novell SUSE Linux OS | $ 0.215 | $ 0.270 | $ 0.310 | $ 0.370 | $0.800 |
| With Microsoft Windows Server | $ 0.205 | $ 0.220 | $ 0.270 | $ 0.550 | $1.250 |
Reserved capacity package examples:
| Reservation package content | 1 reservation unit | 8 reservation units | 30 reservation units |
| Virtual CPUs with 1.25 GHz | 64 | 512 | 1,920 |
| Virtual memory (Gigabytes) | 96 | 768 | 2,880 |
| Instance storage (Gigabytes) | 9,600 | 76,800 | 288,000 |
| Price Per Month | |||
| 6-month reservation | $1,850 | $14,800 | $55,500 |
| 12-month reservation | $1,300 | $10,400 | $39,000 |
Persistent Storage
SCE offers Persistent Storage Blocks in the following sizes:
| Storage Package | Storage Amount | Price per Block * Hour | Price per GB * Month |
| Small | 256 GB | $0.03840 | $0.108 |
| Medium | 512 GB | $0.07680 | $0.108 |
| Large | 2,048 GB | $0.30720 | $0.108 |
Private Image Storage for original and backup images:
| Price per GB * Hour | Price per GB * Month |
| $0.00015 | $0.108 |
Data Transfer after 6/30/2011
Requests per million or portion thereof for each block or private image saved: $ 0.11
Internet Data Transfer
| Number of TB transferred | Price per GB transferred in or out |
| First 10 TB | $0.15 |
| Next 40 TB | $0.11 |
| Next 100 TB | $0.09 |
| Additional (over 150 TB) | $0.08 |
Data Center Locations
According to IBM Asia Pacific Services Announcement AS11-0021, dated March 22, 2011, SCE is provided by data centers at the following locaitons:
- Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
- Boulder, Colorado, United States
- Toronto, Canada
- Ehningen, Germany
- Makuhari, Japan
Software Images: Pay As You Go
The IBM Smart Business Cloud public images with selected software PDF file contains brief descriptions of available IBM and third-party software images, which include the following for which per-hour usage charges are available from the SmartCloud Enterprise Development Pages’ Licensing and Pricing Tab with the Licensing and Pricing Options page selected.
Per hour usage charge (not available for Platinum VMs)
| Image description | Copper | Bronze | Silver | Gold |
| IBM Lotus Web Content Management Standard Edition 6.1.5 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 1.254 | $ 1.254 | $ 2.424 | $ 5.017 |
| IBM Lotus Web Content Management 6.1.5 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 5.104 | $ 5.104 | $ 10.208 | $ 20.417 |
| IBM WebSphere Portal Server & Lotus Web Content Management Standard Edition 6.1.5 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 3.819 | $ 3.819 | $ 7.639 | $ 15.278 |
| IBM WebSphere Portal Server & Lotus Web Content Management 6.1.5 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0(32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 8.019 | $ 8.019 | $ 16.039 | $ 32.078 |
| IBM Mashup Center V2.0 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 1.703 | $ 1.703 | $ 3.405 | $ 6.810 |
| IBM WebSphere Application Server Base V7.0.0.9 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 0.557 | $0.557 | $ 1.114 | $ 2.228 |
| IBM WebSphere Application Server Base V7.0.0.11 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 0.557 | $ 0.557 | $ 1.114 | $ 2.228 |
| IBM WebSphere sMash V1.1.1 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 0.284 | $ 0.284 | $ 0.569 | $ 1.138 |
| IBM DB2 Express-C 9.7.1 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 0.00 | $ 0.00 | $ 0.00 | $ 0.00 |
| IBM Informix Developer Edition V11.5 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 0.00 | $ 0.00 | $ 0.00 | $ 0.00 |
| IBM Informix Developer Edition V11.7 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 0.00 | $ 0.00 | $ 0.00 | $ 0.00 |
| IBM Informix Innovator-C Edition V11.7 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 0.00 | $ 0.00 | $ 0.00 | $ 0.00 |
| IBM Lotus Forms Turbo 3.5.1 FP 1 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 0.600 | $ 0.600 | $ 1.200 | $ 2.400 |
| CohesiveFT VPN-Cubed Datacenter Connect Trial Edition V2.0.0 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (32 bit) (PAYG) | n/a | $ 0.00 | n/a | n/a |
| IBM Lotus Domino Enterprise Server V8.5.2 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 0.122 | $ 0.122 | $ 0.244 | $ 0.488 |
| IBM Lotus Web Content Management Standard Edition V7.0.0 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 1.254 | $ 1.254 | $ 2.424 | $ 5.017 |
| IBM Lotus Web Content Management 7.0.0 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 5.104 | $ 5.104 | $ 10.208 | $ 20.417 |
| IBM WebSphere Portal Server & Lotus Web Content Management Standard Edition V7.0.0 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 3.819 | $ 3.819 | $ 7.639 | $ 15.278 |
| IBM WebSphere Portal Server & Lotus Web Content Management V7.0.0 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0(32 bit) (PAYG) | $ 8.019 | $ 8.019 | $ 16.039 | $ 32.078 |
| Kaavo IMOD Trial-V3.0 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.0 (64 bit) (PAYG) | n/a | $ 0.00 | n/a | n/a |
The only IBM database images I’ve found offered so far for SCE are IBM DB2 Enterprise Developer Edition 9.7.1, DB2 Express-C 9.7.1, Informix Developer Edition 11.7 Informix Innovator-C Edition V11.7, and Cognos Business Intelligence 10.1 (Bring Your Own License). Other than Cognos, these databases are Developer, Express and Community (C), not production, versions.
AWS offers AMIs for IBM DB2 Express Edition (32-bit) and IBM DB2 Workgroup Edition (64-bit).
AWS’ Amazon EC2 Running IBM page describes (and provides US and world-wide prices) for the following AMIs that are ready to run in Amazon EC2 with Novell SuSE Linux and the associated IBM products:
- Amazon EC2 running IBM DB2
- Amazon EC2 running IBM Informix Dynamic Server
- Amazon EC2 running IBM Lotus Forms Turbo
- Amazon EC2 running IBM Lotus Web Content Management 7.0 Standard Edition (64-bit)
- Amazon EC2 running IBM Lotus Web Content Management 7.0 (64-bit)
- Amazon EC2 running IBM WebSphere Portal Server and IBM Lotus Web Content Management Standard Edition V7.0 (64-bit)
- Amazon EC2 running IBM WebSphere Portal Server and IBM Lotus Web Content Management V7.0 (64-bit)
- Amazon EC2 running IBM Mashup Center
- Amazon EC2 running IBM Tivoli Monitoring
- Amazon EC2 running IBM WebSphere Application Server
- Amazon EC2 running IBM WebSphere sMash
For example, the price for running IBM WebSphere Application Server Base in a Standard Small (default) AWS type is $0.79/hour ($568.80 per month) and in a High-CPU Medium Type is $1.45/hour ($1,044/month). IBM charges $0.557/hour for the software image and $0.19/hour for the two 32-bit Copper CPUs required for a high-availability Web or application server = $0.747/hour. See the “IBM’s Approach to High Availability” section below.
Domino Applications in the Cloud
From the IBM Unveils Next Generation Smart Cloud Platform for Business press release of 4/7/2011:
Additionally, customers can deploy their Lotus Domino applications to the IBM SmartCloud – Enterprise via the Lotus Domino Utility Server for LotusLive. LotusLive provides integrated email, social business and third-party applications from the cloud. The new server licensing model extends customer deployment options for Domino applications from on-premises to cloud. With the immediate availability of the Domino Utility Server for LotusLive, clients today can now move applications to the IBM SmartCloud – Enterprise and take advantage of fixed, predictable pricing and flexible deployment. IBM Global Technology Services will also work with clients on planning and assessments.
I can’t find additional information, such as pricing, for hosting LotusLive in SCE.
Estimated Monthly Charges for Sample Configurations
SCE’s Monthly Cost Estimator Tool (MCET) offers two sample configurations:
- Web application - pre-loads a small web application test configuration that you can use as a starting point for a development and test project.
- High availability site - pre-loads the configuration used by a successful website running on the IBM Cloud that you can adjust it to fit your requirements.
Here’s the first screen of the MCET:
The second screen lets you select the virtual machine and software images. The following are default selections for the Web Application configuration. Hourly Rates and Software Monthly Charges aren’t applicable until you choose numbers of instances and size configurations in the next page:
The WebSphere Application Server Base charges appear as “Prepaid,” which means Bring You Own License (BYOL) in this case. If you don’t have three available WebSphere licenses, the cost becomes $1,220 per month and the Estimated Total Monthly Charge increases to $3,670.
The third screen makes the assumption that you want to reserve a total of seven server instances for a period of 12 months:
Note: Although there is no charge for renting the IBM DB2 Express-C 9.7.1 software image, there is a charge for the operating system instances to run it.
Scroll down to display the reserved instance details. The minimum reserved capacity pool is 64 CPUs, so utilization in this case will be only 44%:
The “Reserved capacity may not be economically attractive with the low monthly usage you have selected above” observation is correct. Setting the Reserved Capacity Units to 0 reduces monthly cost by $684:
The fourth screen reserves 1TB of persistent storage for original and backup private images and stateful data. Cost estimates monthly I/O costs, which don’t start until 7/1/2011:
The fifth screen estimates Internet data ingress and egress:
The sixth screen allocates one static IP address for each server instance and provides a VPN option at $300 per month (plus $1,000 installation fee):
The seventh and final screen makes the assumption that you will want Premium (but not Advanced Premium) and Linux OS support for $151 per month:
Advanced Premium support, which includes a service-level agreement (SLA) for response time) costs $1,000 per month for this configuration.
Here’s the start of an Excel worksheet for comparing the cost of equivalent Amazon Web Services and Windows Azure services:
IBM’s Approach to High Availability
The High availability apps in the IBM Cloud white paper of 1/10/2011 by Dima Rekesh and Alan Robertson is subtitled “How to protect a cloud-enabled, production-grade application
against a failure on any node.” From the introduction:
The new features of the IBM® Cloud enable application developers and architects to eliminate single points of failures in applications. This article provides a detailed
guide on those features. It includes a discussion of the approach the IBM Cloud
takes (added support for virtual IP addresses); how to prepare your cloud instances to take advantage of this feature; how to set up a highly available website; and how to test that site.The IBM® Smart Business Development and Test[*] on the IBM Cloud is a dynamically provisioned and scaled elastic environment that provides enterprise customers with everything they need to develop, test, and host applications. It includes a web portal to configure and manage the cloud resources, software images of IBM products that jump-start development and test efforts, and APIs that enable users to control cloud resources and software programmatically. And IBM teams have been adding new features since the debut of the IBM Cloud that are designed to provide additional flexibility and resiliency.
This greater agility and much improved elasticity — which helps adjust your
application topology to the demands of the business in real time — comes with a
tradeoff: A decrease in compatibility with cloud environments of such features as high availability (HA).High availability, the requirement to protect a production-grade application against a failure of any node, isn't a new concept by any standard; many software products address this challenge. But most of these products are, by and large, not compatible with the cloud; most public cloud providers do not provide the required functionality.[**]
With that in mind, customers need to supplement their cloud deployments with HA
constructs that exist outside the cloud. In this article, you will see what IBM has done with its cloud to address this issue and how you can tap into that feature:
- We'll discuss the approach the IBM Cloud takes (added support for virtual
IP addresses).- We'll show you how to prepare your cloud instances to take advantage of
this feature.- In an example, we'll show you how to set up a highly available website.
- And we'll show you how to test that site.
* Smart Business Development and Test was the predecessor of SmartCloud. According to IBM United States Services Announcement 611-020, dated March 22, 2011, IBM Smart Business Cloud - Enterprise – virtual environment V1.4:
IBM Smart Business Compute Cloud - IBM Smart Business Development and Test
on the IBM Cloud - virtual environment has been renamed to IBM Smart Business
Compute Cloud - IBM Smart Business Cloud - Enterprise - virtual environment.
There are no changes to the announced service functionality.
** Windows Azure provides HA automatically by means of the Windows Azure fabric. It isn’t necessary “to prepare your cloud instances to take advantage of this feature.”
Promises of Features to Come
The press release described the current Enterprise and a future Enterprise + version:
The IBM SmartCloud has two implementation options: Enterprise and Enterprise +.
- Enterprise – Available today and expanding on our existing Development and Test Cloud allowing customers to expand on internal development and test efforts with reduction of application development tasks from days to minutes via automation and rapid provisioning with over 30% reduction in costs versus traditional application environments. This offering is available immediately.
- Enterprise + -- To be made available later this year, Enterprise + will complement and expand on the value of Enterprise, offering brand new capabilities provide a core set of multi-tenant services to manage virtual server, storage, network and security infrastructure components including managed operational production services [sic].
Enterprise
Rapid access, multi-tenant solution scaled and priced based on usage
Enterprise +
Robust multi-tenant solution, including managed services
Workloads
Ideal for developing and deploying new application designs
Ideal for migration of traditional and higher availability applications
Operating System
Linux, Windows
Windows, Linux, AIX
Management Level
Self-service with advanced premium support
Fully managed
Availability
99.5%
99.9%
Security
Virtual and some physical
Multiple levels of isolation
Software License
Bring you own/pay as you go/free developer use
IBM provides operating system and tool licenses
Pricing
Hourly usage-based with reserved options
Monthly usage-based and fixed contract
Future IBM SAP Managed Services
From the IBM Unveils Next Generation Smart Cloud Platform for Business press release of 4/7/2011:
Also available later this year, IBM SAP Managed Application Services will be offered on the IBM SmartCloud. These new services automate the most common labor intensive tasks associated with managing SAP environments. The services catalog for SAP on the IBM SmartCloud provides for the automated provisioning of SAP environments and significantly reduces the cost and labor associated with SAP cloning, refreshes and patching. SAP services on the IBM SmartCloud provide production service levels and optional 24 / 7 DBA and SAP Basis support.
Benefits from our SAP in the Cloud service, include:
- Install of DB2/Oracle from 1 day to 12 minutes
- Maintain database libraries from ½ day to 8 minutes
- Clone database from 2-3 days to 20 minutes
- Install of operating system from 1 day to 30 minutes
- Prepare upgrade/provide SAP system from 2-3 days to 40 minutes
- Add additional application server form 1 day to 10 minutes
- SAP systems refresh from 1 – 4 days to 3 minutes
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1 comments:
AWS offers 3 different 32 bit instance types (not two, as you suggest). Types include m1.small, t1.micro, and c1.medium.
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