IBM Offers Clear Solutions for Different Cloud Types

Published: December 2, 2008

by Alex Woodie

Clouds come in all shapes and sizes. There are public clouds, private clouds, industry-specific clouds, and even "hybrid" clouds. Selecting the right professional services for your specific type of cloud is critical to the survival of your organization, and to that end, IBM's Global Services division last week unveiled new professional services offerings tailored for different cloud types.

IBM is pushing cloud computing as a way to unhitch IT from the "one server, one application" paradigm of computing (even though that paradigm never applied to Big Blue's System i midrange or System z mainframe servers), and to boost its already-considerable professional services business.

The message is this: Instead of installing another server to run a new application--and then dealing with all the hassles of managing and maintaining the server and application--just sign up for cloud computing, and let IBM deliver IT bliss straight to your Web browser.

This big, bold message became more nuanced last week with the unveiling of three new professional services offerings for cloud computing. The first of these involves consulting services for building industry-specific clouds for customers. IBM will assess the total cost of ownership for building a private cloud for the customer, or for moving a customer's data into a public cloud service (Salesfore.com is probably the best example of a public or hybrid cloud service).

The second offering involves strictly private clouds. Cloud professionals from IBM will design, configure, and deliver your own private cloud computing platform inside your own private data center. This offering would be useful for organizations looking to offer cloud-based services to their customers.

Cloud security is the topic of the third offering. In cooperation with the X-Force team at IBM subsidiary Internet Security Systems, clients will receive expert advice on how to architect and design their cloud systems to be protected against vulnerabilities.

These items are just the tip of the cloud iceberg for IBM. The IT giant is working on specific cloud offerings for industry verticals like lending and healthcare, and for industry verticals like CRM and supply chain management. You can expect a lot more from IBM on cloud computing in the future.

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