12th October 2011
IBM has today launched its portfolio of enterprise cloud products, SmartCloud, with the intention of helping over 200m global customers make a shift to cloud computing by the end of 2012. The announcement comes just a week after major rivals Oracle launched their own selection of cloud products and a global public cloud service.
Covering a number of bases, including large-scale application delivery and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) accessibility for partners, SmartCloud promises to deliver a new element of public cloud accessibility for global SMEs looking to utilise cloud through IBM’s vast infrastructure network.The package will incorporate:
- SmartCloud Application Services – A new PaaS option that will give enterprises the cost and time savings of a cloud environment for a wide range of enterprise applications while maintaining a high level of control and security over deployment and access.
- SmartCloud Foundation – A new portfolio of breakthrough cloud software and hardware that allow enterprises to quickly deploy and control clouds within their own firewalls.
- SmartCloud Ecosystem – New services for IBM partners and independent software vendors (ISVs) to help thousands of small and medium business clients adopt cloud models and manage millions of cloud based transactions by assisting their customers in areas as diverse as banking, communications, healthcare and government to build their own clouds or securely tap into the IBM SmartCloud.
SmartCloud will also tie in with Enterprise+, an initiative announced by IBM earlier in the year, which will offer the company’s public cloud environment to SMEs with “dial-in” options to security, existing applications, reliability, management and support services more typical of a private cloud environment. Enterprise+ will become available early in 2012.
In a conference call held in the UK earlier this morning, IBM’s NE Europe Software Group Cloud Leader, Simon Baker, stated the SmartCloud announcement represented “two elements of focus for the company – the evolution of application services and ‘the next layer’ to be placed on top of IBM’s well-established infrastructure, and the opening up of PaaS so partners could develop cloud solutions quickly through the SmartCloud foundation”.
He also specified the initial applications to be deployed on the platform would include SAP’s enterprise resource planning applications, as well as further CRM and web-based email applications.
Available in beta in the fourth quarter, IBM SmartCloud Application Services will offer enterprise–grade security, open Java and cross-platform support with no vendor lock-in, and a comprehensive set of application infrastructure and managed services to enable development and deployment of applications to the cloud.
A full press release with further details of all IBM’s new SmartCloud offerings is available here:
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/35596.wss
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