IBM Virtual Private Cloud Infrastructure

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  • 2019

  • Digital
    Apps and Software

Designed By:

Commissioned By:

IBM Cloud Design Team

Designed In:

United States of America

IBM Virtual Private Cloud Infrastructure is a product suite designed to modernize IBM’s IaaS portfolio. This product suite improves on the integration and navigation of the software products, allowing users to move throughout the software portfolio with ease and speed. This suite overall creates a more engaging user experience.


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  • CHALLENGE
  • SOLUTION
  • IMPACT
  • MORE
  • IBM's IaaS portfolio is based on our acquisition of Softlayer. This set of classic products, while functional, were not as user friendly as we would have liked. They were built as stand alone products that could be used together but offered little in the way of assisting the user in their connections to a greater goal. With VPC Infrastructure we had the chance to research what users wanted out of an infrastructure solution and tailor our experiences towards user delight and cross suite functionality.

  • We began the design process by looking at how we could create an easy user journey across the suite of products, as opposed to leaving it up to the user to piece together how they use different products to form a solution. We focused on what were the specific pain points of our target users as they tried to piece together the different software, and designed solutions for those specific scenarios.

  • By allowing users to focus on the creation of a software ecosystem as opposed to a set of disjointed products, we are working to make cloud infrastructure less technically complex and available to novice as well as expert users. Our design, catered to user needs, allows for users of any level to take control of their underlying cloud development needs.

  • IBM VPC Infrastructure helped usher in a new wave of design style at IBM Cloud. When we began this project, the designs of the software we were designing for were outdated and not user-friendly. Our team was asked to create a new design that was catered to our specific users and their needs, as opposed to the previous design that was difficult to integrate into the user workflow. The design work behind IBM VPC Infrastructure was used to inform redesigns of other IBM Cloud products, helping create an entire collection of user-centered products and leading a new approach for user-focused design across the company.