IBM Accelerates High Value Cloud Adoption with Enterprise Clients in China

BEIJING and ARMONK, N.Y., Dec. 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Today China entered a new era in cloud computing as IBM (NYSE: IBM) joined forces with 21Vianet Group, Inc., the country's largest carrier-neutral Internet Data Center (IDC) service provider, to introduce IBM's premier cloud infrastructure service and accelerate high value managed private cloud adoption.

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With today's news, IBM will provide the physical point of distribution (POD) and service while 21Vianet will host the POD facility at 21Vianet datacenter in Beijing.

This partnership brings the most powerful, secure, and scalable cloud built on open standards -- known as IBM SmartCloud Enterprise+ --  to China due to the rising demand for managing more complex, mission critical workloads and applications in the cloud by large enterprises.   IBM has a long history in driving innovation in China and already manages numerous high value cloud engagements with many large organizations.

Cloud computing has become a mainstream delivery mechanism for information technology (IT) globally but is still in a nascent stage of adoption for enterprise cloud. Many IT buyers understand that there is a range of options from the low end, commodity cloud marketplace that provides little more than cheap storage and access.  On the other end of the spectrum is IBM's cloud infrastructure and managed services that can expand to accommodate any workload with the realtime performance and integrity for which enterprises the world over trust IBM to enable business innovation and transformation.

IBM Cloud capabilities deliver a customizable infrastructure service built on open standards for the most demanding workloads. IBM's cloud capabilities can deliver a comprehensive, yet flexible enterprise cloud environments within a few hours, with the highest levels of security.  It uses a virtual private network to provide access to cloud infrastructure and provides end-to-end 99.9 percent availability.

21Vianet Group, Inc. is the largest carrier-neutral Internet data center services provider in China.  21Vianet provides hosting and related services, managed network services and cloud computing infrastructure services, improving the reliability, security and speed of its customers' Internet connections through 21Vianet's Internet infrastructure. Customers may locate their servers and networking equipment in 21Vianet's data centers and connect to China's Internet backbone through 21Vianet's extensive fiber optic network. In addition, 21Vianet's proprietary smart routing technology, BroadEx, enables customers' data to be delivered across the Internet in a faster and more reliable manner. 21Vianet operates in more than 40 cities throughout China, servicing a diversified and loyal base of more than 2000 customers that span many industries ranging from Internet companies to government entities and blue-chip enterprises to small- to mid-sized enterprises.

Josh Chen, Chairman and CEO of 21Vianet Group, Inc. said: "IBM is a global leading enterprise-level cloud computing provider. What's more, IBM is a sincere partner, not only sharing its own technologies and services, but also growing together with us with business insights, management experience, operation and marketing to help drive innovation. Through this cooperation, 21Vianet Group, Inc. has obtained not only business growth, but also comprehensive enhancement in service capability of cloud computing, providing a platform upon which enterprises to base their critical and production workloads for growth."

Laurie Tropiano, General Manager of GTS, IBM GCG said: "Today, IBM  and 21Vianet Group, Inc. create the new era of enterprise cloud computing in China.  Our clients, the pillars of China's economy, will see IBM further accelerating its efforts around driving innovation in China with enhanced IBM cloud offerings as a platform. We are setting a new benchmark for cloud computing performance in China."

About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM is the global leader in cloud with an unmatched portfolio of open cloud solutions that help clients build, rent or tap into cloud capabilities.  IBM could supports 30 percent more top-level websites than any other cloud computing provider.  Among the Fortune 500, 24  of the top 25 companies rely on IBM cloud computing.   Through the first three quarters of 2013, IBM's quarterly revenue for cloud computing grew by 70 percent, reaching $1 billion (US) in the third quarter alone.   No other company has the ability to bring together unique industry knowledge and unmatched cloud capabilities, that have already helped more than 20,000 clients around the world. Today, IBM has more than 100 cloud SaaS solutions, 37,000 experts with deep industry knowledge helping clients transform and a network of more than 25 global cloud delivery centers.
Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $6 billion in acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives. M. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/smartcloud. Follow us on Twitter at @IBMcloud and on our blog at  http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com.  Join the conversation #ibmcloud.

Michael Azzi
IBM Media Relations
914-766-1561
[email protected]

Ling Wu
IBM Media Relations, China
86-10-63614266
[email protected]

SOURCE IBM