SAN FRANCISCO, April 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM today announced next generation cloud services and technology advances for clients moving key enterprise business processes into production cloud environments to innovate, reduce costs and increase agility.  

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO)

To accelerate the shift from experimentation, development and assessment to full scale enterprise deployment of cloud, IBM is building out its existing cloud portfolio with IBM SmartCloud, its next-generation, enterprise cloud technologies and services offerings for private, public and hybrid clouds based on IBM hardware, software, services and best practices.

As part of this announcement, IBM is demonstrating a next-generation, enterprise cloud service delivery platform currently piloting with key clients and available later this year. For the first time, enterprise clients will be able to select key characteristics of a public, private and hybrid cloud to match workload requirements from simple Web infrastructure to complex business processes, along five dimensions, including:  

• Security and isolation
• Availability and performance
• Technology platforms
• Management Support and Deployment
• Payment and Billing

Announcements include new services, software, standards initiatives, and customer wins, including:

• IBM SmartCloud - Building on IBM's existing public cloud, the new service will be offered in two tiers, Enterprise and Enterprise +, giving clients an unprecedented level of choice and economic benefits, combining the cost saving and scalability of a shared environment plus the flexibility to "dial-in" the security, existing applications, reliability, management and support services more typical of a private environment.
• IBM Workload Deployer – IBM now provides a single platform to enable clients to provision all the middleware and application components they need to run Web workloads in the cloud across multiple systems in a simple and repeatable fashion. This will allow businesses to respond quickly to new requests for services from their customers, and rapidly deploy new applications that will increase revenue and deliver greater customer satisfaction.
• Cloud Standards Customer Council – IBM is joining more than 45 of the world's leading enterprises like Citigroup, Lockheed Martin and NC State University to help advance cloud adoption prioritizing key interoperability issues such as management, reference architectures, hybrid cloud, as well as security and compliance.
• Social Business in the Cloud – IBM is extending its growth as one of the largest SaaS providers unveiling new clients American Airlines, Aviva, Carfax, Costco, Frito Lay, IndiaFirst Life Insurance Co., Shriram Transport Finance Company Ltd., and 7Eleven.

IBM and its Business Partners help thousands of clients adopt cloud models and manages millions of cloud based transactions every day assisting customers in areas as diverse as banking, communications, healthcare and government to build their own clouds or securely tap into IBM cloud-based business and infrastructure services.

IBM began its cloud initiative nearly five years ago establishing "Blue Cloud" labs around the world to accelerate collaboration with innovative clients, governments and universities. Cloud is now a core growth area for IBM expected to drive $7 billion in revenue by 2015 in hardware, software and services.

"We are committed to helping clients both extend their IT investments and become leading providers of cloud-based business process services in their own industries," said Steve Mills, senior vice president, Senior Vice President and Group Executive - Software & Systems. "We have a track record of helping clients safely embrace and accelerate enterprise adoption of new models and technologies – from e-business to Linux and open source – and we're doing it now for Cloud."

IBM is unique in bringing together key cloud technologies, deep process knowledge, a broad portfolio of cloud solutions, and a network of global delivery centers. IBM is making a series of announcements:

Next Generation Cloud Platform Services

The new IBM SmartCloud can enable organizations, their employees and partners, to get what they need, as they need it – from advanced analytics and business applications to IT infrastructure like virtual servers and storage or access to tools for testing software code - all deployed securely across IBM's global network of cloud data centers.

The IBM SmartCloud has two implementation options: Enterprise and Enterprise +.

• Enterprise – Available today and expanding on our existing Development and Test Cloud allowing customers to expand on internal development and test efforts with reduction of application development tasks from days to minutes via automation and rapid provisioning with over 30% reduction in costs versus traditional application environments. This offering is available immediately.
• Enterprise + -- To be made available later this year, Enterprise + will complement and expand on the value of Enterprise, offering brand new capabilities provide a core set of multi-tenant services to manage virtual server, storage, network and security infrastructure components including managed operational production services.

Read full press release: http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/34197.wss

New Software Accelerates Cloud Deployment

IBM is releasing new software that helps companies build cloud computing services across applications such as sales, marketing or human resources and across private, public and hybrid cloud delivery models.

The IBM Workload Deployer allows companies to assemble customized cloud services with templates based on IBM best practices and feature a wide range of IBM software, services and management capabilities.  Clients will be able to use a graphical user interface (GUI) to easily install applications, configure databases and set up security for the cloud services they consume or deliver to their customers. Delivered with built-in monitoring, life-cycle management and elasticity, the IBM Workload Deployer can dramatically simplify and accelerate cloud deployments.

Read full press release: http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/34199.wss

Driving Open Cloud Standards

IBM joins more than 45 leading organizations including Lockheed Martin and NC State University in founding this group designed to complement and feed requirements to vendor led standards organizations.  The group will help advance cloud adoption prioritizing key interoperability issues such as management, reference architectures, hybrid cloud, as well as security and compliance.

The Cloud Standards Customer Council is open to all end-user organizations. The group will work to lower the barriers for widespread adoption of Cloud Computing by helping to prioritize key interoperability issues.

Read full press release: http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/34198.wss

Social Business in the Cloud

IBM has increased client adoption of its cloud computing software and services with more than 20 million end-user customers worldwide, making it one of the world's largest providers of software-as-a-service (SaaS).  

New clients include American Airlines, Aviva, CARFAX, Frito-Lay, IndiaFirst Life Insurance Co., Lincoln Trust, Shriram Transport Finance Company Ltd., and 7-Eleven among millions of users of IBM's cloud services focused on business process management and collaboration.

A range of new clients are working around the world and across company firewalls to improve collaboration, employee innovation and key business processes such as marketing, finance and customer service in IBM's social  clouds, Blueworks Live and LotusLive.  

Read full press release: http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/34201.wss

Other IBM cloud services for the enterprise

LotusLive - The collaboration suite simplifies and improves daily business interactions with customers, partners and colleagues including file sharing, Web conferencing, instant messaging, social networking, communities and project tracking.

IBM Coremetrics --- More than 2,100 online brands (600 companies) globally use Coremetrics Software as a Service (SaaS) to optimize their online marketing.

IBM Unica cloud services (Pivotal Veracity and Marketing Operations OnDemand) are used by approximately 36,000 marketers

IBM Sterling Commerce makes over 310,000 electronic trading partner connections worldwide and over 1.1 Billion transactions yearly with approximately $15 Trillion of client value through B2B services annually with 10 of the Top 10 US Retailers, 10 of the Top 10 US Banks, 9 of the Top 10 US Manufacturers.

IBM Cast Iron helps clients integrate cloud services with enterprise business processes and information to enable hybrid cloud models which protect customer's existing IT investments while delivering increased flexibility.  IBM Cast Iron supports multiple business models and the capabilities can be delivered as a cloud service, an on-premise appliance or as a virtual appliance.

IBM Blueworks Live, a collaborative cloud service, helps clients structure and automate ad hoc business processes in seconds.  

IBM Tivoli Live is a software-as-a-service that offers enterprise-class service management capabilities without the need to deploy additional hardware or purchase and configure software licenses. Available through a monthly subscription, the software provides businesses flexible and configurable management capabilities with built-in best practices.

IBM Converged Communications Services delivers design and deployment of a security-rich, private unified communications cloud solution to help clients reduce costs and complexities of managing collaboration tools while improving productivity and collaboration of their workforce

The demand for cloud computing is exploding as organizations seek to expand the impact of IT to deliver new and innovative services while realizing significant economies of scale. According to IDC, $17 billion was spent on cloud-related technologies, hardware and software in 2009. IDC expects that spending will grow to $45 billion by 2013.(1)

About IBM Cloud Computing

IBM has helped thousands of clients adopt cloud models and manages millions of cloud based transactions every day. IBM assists clients in areas as diverse as banking, communications, healthcare and government to build their own clouds or securely tap into IBM cloud-based business and infrastructure services. IBM is unique in bringing together key cloud technologies, deep process knowledge, a broad portfolio of cloud solutions, and a network of global delivery centers. For more information about IBM cloud solutions, visit www.ibm.com/smartcloud

(1) IDC http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/netsys/article.php/3870016/IDC-Sees-Cloud-Market-Maturing-Quickly.htmhttp://itmanagement.earthweb.com/netsys/article.php/3870016/IDC-Sees-Cloud-Market-Maturing-Quickly.htm

For more information about IBM cloud solutions, visit www.ibm.com/cloud

For more information on IBM cloud computing partner initiatives, visit www.ibm.com/partner/cloud

IBM Media Contact
Steve Tomasco
IBM External Relations
917-472-3738
stomasc@us.ibm.com

SOURCE IBM