How to migrate from performance management on IBM Cloud

Note: Q-CTRL's native integration with Qiskit Runtime on IBM Cloud will be deprecated on October 18th, 2024.

In November 2023, Q-CTRL announced that the same AI-driven error suppression technology that powers Fire Opal was integrated natively integrated within the Qiskit Runtime Service on IBM Cloud. This was a significant industry moment as the first native software integration of a third-party vendor on the IBM Quantum Platform. The integration paved the way for the launch of the IBM Qiskit Functions Catalog inside the IBM Quantum Platform — new abstracted services that simplify utility-scale computing on IBM Quantum systems.

With the new offering available, the Q-CTRL performance management option within the Qiskit Runtime Service on IBM Cloud will be migrated to the new Qiskit Functions Catalog, with expanded capabilities offered as two Functions: Performance Management and Optimization Solver.

If you would like to continue leveraging Q-CTRL in your workflow, please note the following migration options:

• If your organization has an existing IBM Quantum Premium Plan instance: you can get access to the Performance Management Function, found in the Qiskit Functions Catalog.
• If you would like to continue using Qiskit Runtime via IBM Cloud (Pay-as-you-go): you can use Fire Opal to access the same performance management directly through Q-CTRL. You can connect your IBM Cloud API key and Qiskit Runtime CRN to Fire Opal.

Migrating from Q-CTRL performance management to using Fire Opal with Qiskit Runtime Service on IBM Cloud

Transitioning to using Fire Opal with IBM Cloud is simple and only requires a few steps.

1. Create a new Qiskit Runtime Service instance

Your existing service instance with Q-CTRL performance management will be disabled on October 18th. Create a new service instance with the IBM performance management strategy, or use an existing one.

2. Find your access credentials

After signing up, you will need to obtain your access credentials.

3. Build your credentials object

The following code demonstrates how to to pass your credentials to Fire Opal for device access. You will need to provide your IBM Cloud API key as the token and the Cloud Resource Name as the instance.

import fireopal as fo

token = "YOUR_IBM_CLOUD_API_KEY"
instance = "YOUR_IBM_CRN"
credentials = fo.credentials.make_credentials_for_ibm_cloud(
    token=token, instance=instance
)

You can use the function show_supported_devices to validate that your credentials are properly defined and list the devices that are both supported by Fire Opal and accessible via the IBM Cloud credentials provided.

supported_devices = fo.show_supported_devices(credentials=credentials)[
    "supported_devices"
]
for name in supported_devices:
    print(name)