Virtualization Strategies News, Analysis, White Papers and Case Studies on Virtualization Software and Hardware Strategies

IBM introduces its cloud computing portfolio this week and showcased a few partners and customers. Big Blue’s cloud strategy remains focused on the enterprise; so you can’t pay by the minute with credit cards, like you can with Amazon Web Services and other general purpose cloud offerings.

For enterprise IT, cloud computing promises dramatically better ease of use, economies of scale and much greater flexibility in sourcing and adapting to change. The technologies comprising cloud computing - virtualization, SOA, Software as a Service, are technologies that IBM claims to have invented or are least, well-known for excelling in. IBM intends to help its clients and partners realize their cloud computing goals in three principle ways:

• Build their own cloud environments for internal and external use
• Deliver cloud services and software to be consumed by clients and partners directly
• Build an ecosystem of developers, partners, vendors and universities to further cloud computing and standards adoption

The partnership and strategy include:

• A cloud-management dashboard called Service Management Center for Cloud Computing that works in conjunction with other its products, including the updated Tivoli Provisioning Manager 7.1 and Tivoli Service Automation Manager.
• IBM also announced Tivoli Storage as a Service, aimed at business continuity and recovery, not general-purpose storage. IBM already offers business continuity as a service; what’s new is the Tivoli interface, making the service more appealing to IT departments that use the Tivoli platform.
• IBM and Juniper Networks are teaming to demonstrate hybrid clouds, where private clouds overflow to secure public clouds when extra compute capacity is required.
• A new IBM organizational team focused on cloud computing strategy and planning services.

IBM is methodically expanding its cloud platform capabilities with a focus on enterprise-class products and services, not on the broader market targeted by Amazon, Google, and others. With today’s announcements, IBM has the one of the most complete set of hardware, software and services for enterprise clients to harness cloud computing for cost and efficiency. For more information on this announcement you can visit, IBM.

Posted under Cloud Computing, Virtualization News, Virtualization Products / Reviews