IBM Moves Towards OpenStack Based Clouds

IBM recently announced that the company is restructuring its enterprise cloud services and software along with transitioning to open platforms.

According to IBM’s officials, the cloud platform services will now be based on OpenStack model, a move likely beneficial for its customers as it allows them customize and develop their personal cloud computing deployments.

IBM as a first step launched the SmartCloud Orchestrator tool, based on OpenStack technology that facilitates businesses and developers to create and deploy cloud services easily. It provides a speedy and simplified administration of an enterprise cloud. The SmartCloud is meant to monitor the evolution and accessibility of cloud applications.

With this new tool, enterprises using open source technologies can develop enterprise cloud services that can work on hybrid cloud settings. The tool is developed on the code of interoperability that lets customers switch among IBM’s private, hybrid and public cloud services. As per IBM’s senior vice president of software, Robert LeBlanc, “History has shown that open source and standards are hugely beneficial to end customers and are a major catalyst for innovation.”

IBM anticipates the tool shall be useful for developers as it speeds up the construction time of cloud platforms through simple cloud interfaces. Now clients don’t need to develop explicit interfaces for various cloud services. With the SmartCloud, many cloud services can be combined and deployed on cloud infrastructure using easy-to-use graphical interface and cloud delivery patterns.

Following the open source technology, IBM promises to deploy a range of cloud products and services, and this is the first step towards fulfillment of a promise. IBM’s senior vice president of software, Robert LeBlanc states, “Just as standards and open source revolutionized the web and Linux, they will also have a tremendous impact on cloud computing. IBM has been at the forefront of championing standards and open source for years, and we are doing it again for cloud computing.”

LeBlanc further adds that in the venture, customers shall be the ultimate beneficiaries as they have the opportunity to choose the platforms of their choice that best reflect their needs. Moreover, now they don’t even have to stick around with one vendor only.

This tool is a milestone for IBM’s cloud computing services, and in the coming weeks, IBM is about to release a new 100Gbit/s interconnect platform, making the potential market for cloud computing even bigger.