IBM Bluemix has a number of account types – from paid-up subscriptions through to trial accounts. Until recently, if you wanted to try out Bluemix, you’d sign up for a 30-day trial account. These accounts are a great way to try out the services on Bluemix – without incurring any charges – but the trouble was that 30 days was always a bit too short and a lot of users found that they hadn’t really managed to scratch the surface before their trials had come to an end.
To address this issue, IBM recently launched the Bluemix Standard account.
The Standard account provides access to every Bluemix service which has a ‘lite’ plan, meaning that you can use a wealth of services a no cost – and better still, there’s no expiry date on your account, so in theory, you can go on using the account, without charges forever. Well, there is one proviso to that – if you provision a service and it’s then inactive for 30 consecutive days, it’s automatically deleted.
However, this is a brilliant way to get started with Bluemix and the truth is, you can investigate, play and build some great applications using the Standard account using services such as Kubernetes, Internet of Things, API Connect, Watson Data Science Experience, Cloudant NoSQL database, DevOps and integration tools, security tools and six Watson services including Translator, Personality Insights, Conversation and Tone Analyzer.
For more information about the Standard account, check out this FAQ.
If you’d like to sign up for a Bluemix standard account, click here.
Happy Bluemixing!
James