Overview
- Offered by Converge; previously owned by IBM
- IaaS for IBM PowerVM based virtual machines (LPARs)
- Integrated offering
- Consume 3rd party service (i.e. IBM Power) as though Google Cloud native
- 4 areas:
- Billing—integrated through Google Cloud marketplace
- User experience—like interacting with Google infrastructure
- Networking—low latency, HA, secure connection to Converge infrastructure (never over internet, private IP space)
- Support—tier 1 support from Google, with escalation to Converge (critical workloads)
- Converge runs infrastructure—customer responsible for OS upwards
- Monthly subscription
- T-shirt sizing—can change plans
- Billing prorated for partial months
- Access to Google Cloud services from within LPARs
- Power9-based servers
- Same infra as used in usual on-prem deployments—by design
- Power10 available on request
- AIX, IBM i, or Linux operating systems
- Regions (as of June 2023):
- us-east4 (N. Virginia)
- us-central1 (Iowa)
- europe-west3 (Frankfurt)
- northamerica-northeast1 (Montréal)
- northamerica-northeast2 (Toronto)
- europe-west4 (Netherlands)—roadmap
Management
- OpenAPI interface—running on GKE in Converge-owned VPC
- Web console—developed by Converge, similar look/feel to Compute Engine UI
- CLI tool—
pcloud developed by Converge, similiar look/feel to gcloud
Networking
- Customer VPC peered to Converge owned VPC
- Converge VPC handles Dedicated Interconnect to Converge data centre containing Power hardware
- RFC1918 address space—no connectivity to Converge hardware from internet without going via customer VPC
References