# SoftLayer an IBM Company

> SoftLayer was a Dallas cloud infrastructure provider combining dedicated physical servers, virtual machines, storage and networking behind a unified portal and API. Founded in 2005 and acquired by IBM in 2013, its business became part of IBM Cloud; its technical lineage remains visible in Classic infrastructure and the SoftLayer API.

- **Founded:** 2005
- **Headquarters:** Dallas, United States
- **Founders:** Lance Crosby (Co-founder and founding CEO)
- **Products:** Bare metal servers, Virtual servers, Private and hybrid cloud infrastructure, Storage and network services, SoftLayer API
- **Notable:** At sale in 2013: 13 data centers, 100,000+ infrastructure devices and 21,000+ customers in 140+ countries, according to GI Partners., IBM described its 2013 acquisition as a USD 2 billion transaction., Customer portal and public API shared the same API set.

## Products & services

- **Bare metal servers** — Dedicated physical servers configurable and managed through a portal and API.
- **Virtual servers** — Virtual compute instances alongside dedicated infrastructure.
- **Private and hybrid cloud infrastructure** — Infrastructure combining physical and virtual resources over private networking.
- **Storage and network services** — Storage, firewalls, load balancing and connectivity supporting hosted applications.
- **SoftLayer API** — Programmatic control of infrastructure, also used by the customer portal; survives in IBM Cloud Classic.

## Achievements

- At sale in 2013: 13 data centers, 100,000+ infrastructure devices and 21,000+ customers in 140+ countries, according to GI Partners.
- IBM described its 2013 acquisition as a USD 2 billion transaction.
- Customer portal and public API shared the same API set.

## Latest updates

- **2026-03** — SoftLayer API release notes for March 26 document removal of deprecated methods; technical maintenance continues under the legacy name.
- **2025-04** — IBM Cloud published Microsoft operating-system licence price changes affecting Classic infrastructure, including bare metal.

## Links

- Website: http://www.softlayer.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/softlayer-technologies-inc-
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/softlayer
- GitHub: https://github.com/softlayer
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/softlayer

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Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-02