IBM’s Slow Moving Cloud
April 28, 2008
In late 2007, IBM announced it “blue cloud”. If you don’t recall the announcement, you can read the IBM announcement here.
The key points that jumped out at me last year when I learned about this initiative are:
- The start of a shift from on-premises computing to cloud computing and Salesforce.com-type
- solutions for some of the IBM enterprise, government, and not for profit clients
- A series of cloud computing offerings that include hardware, services, and systems
- Distributed, globally accessible fabric of resources targeted for existing workloads and emerging massively scalable, data intensive workloads.
Last week, IBM revealed additional blue cloud component. The firm’s iDataPlex hardware is designed for cloud computing specifically for distributed data centers. Engineered to reduce power consumption and air conditioning load, the servers put the IBM “seal of approval” on network-centric or cloud computing solutions for business and large organizations. The zippy hardware can be managed with IBM’s Tivoli-based Blue Cloud software, which helps allays some organizations fears about “out in the cloud” solutions.
Infoworld’s story “Battle Brewing in the Cloud”, which you can read here, does a good job of summarizing similar initiatives from Amazon, Google, and EMC.
IBM’s push into cloud computing is interesting. The company says, “Cloud computing is an emerging approach to shared infrastructure in which large pools of systems are linked together to provide IT services…Blue Cloud will particularly focus on the breakthroughs required in IT management simplification to ensure security, privacy,reliability, as well as high utilization and efficiency.”
My take on IBM’s November 2007 announcement and last week’s iDataPlex and management software availability is that cloud computing is the next application platform. IBM’s verbiage says with authority what Webby companies have been arguing for several years. Largecompanies often pay little attention to innovations from upstarts like Amazon and Google. Industrial giants do notice when IBM gets behind an information technology trend.
Here’s the kicker. I don’t think cloud computing is going to be an overnight sensation. Large organizations are by their nature slow moving. IBM’s announcement certifies that cloud computing is a viable enterprise systems option.
The next IT struggle for dominance, mind share, and revenues is officially underway. Just slowly and for some organizations that pace won’t permit the behemoths to adapt quickly enough to avoid some consequences of the coming shift in enterprise computing.
Stephen Arnold, April 28, 2008
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
