IBM plans to launch the cloud services and software designed from the ground up for enterprise clients. The new IBM SmartCloud services and capabilities introduce unprecedented choice, security and portability as businesses shift critical activities to the cloud and approach its use as a platform for business.
IBM said its SmartCloud Application Services (SCAS) will enable enterprises to realise the cost and time savings of a Cloud environment for their mission-critical enterprise applications while maintaining control and security over deployment and access.
IBM SmartCloud, with new services including the first platform as a service (PaaS) is designed to meet the needs of enterprise application development, deployment and management on the Cloud.
IBM SCAS will offer enterprise-grade security, open Java and cross-platform support with no
vendor lock-in, and a comprehensive set of application infrastructure and managed services.
IBM said its SCAS will run on IBM’s SmartCloud Enterprise and Enterprise+ and SCAS hides the complexity of managing the infrastructure, simplifies the installation, setup, configuration and management of applications, middleware and application tools which allows enterprises to focus on the business requirements of application itself.
SmartCloud is enhanced with new services for automating the most common labour intensive tasks associated with managing SAP environments in the cloud, said the company.
IBM said its SAP in the Cloud service is expected to install the databases in 12minutes, clone the database in 20 minutes, install operating system within 30 minutes, prepare upgrade/provide SAP system in 40 minutes, add an additional application server form in 10 minutes.
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With IBM’s SAP in the Cloud service maintenance of database libraries are done in 8 minutes and the SAP systems are refreshed in 3 minutes, said the company.
IBM said it also plans to release its SmartCloud Enterprise+ in U.S.with full global deployment planned by end of 2012 and the company is making available a Cloud Migration Service for hosting and application on demand clients in the U.S. to achieve the benefits of operating on IBM’s SmartCloud while minimising the risk of the transition to Cloud delivery.
IBM SmartCloud Foundation is a new cloud software that allows enterprises to quickly deploy and control clouds within their own firewalls and it is highly optimised for IBM Power and System x hardware.
The SmartCloud Foundation portfolio contains: prepackaged IBM SmartCloud Entry; private-cloud software that provides simplified cloud administration; standardisation of virtual machines and improved operations productivity with an easy-to-use; self-service interface.
In addition IBM SmartCloud Foundation contains a new provisioning engine and image management system to create or "provision" virtual machines and a new cloud-based monitoring software to create cloud-specific software called IBM SmartCloud Monitoring.
IBM SmartCloud Ecosystem helps small and medium business clients to adopt cloud
models and manage cloud based transactions by assisting their customers in the areas of banking, communications, healthcare and government to build their own clouds or to tap securely
into the IBM SmartCloud. IBM SmartCloud Ecosystem are the services for IBM partners and ISVs.
IBM plans to launch a new storage-as-a-service offerings from Nirvanix as part of the IBM SmartCloud portfolio and with the Nirvanix cloud storage technology, IBM’s SmartCloud storage services will provide a solution capable of supporting millions of users, billions of objects and exabytes of data to complement IBM’s existing secure, virtual server environments in the cloud.
IBM senior vice-president Erich Clementi said enterprise clients are much more conservative because their revenue,reputation and supply chain are closely related to the performance and security of client’s infrastructure.
"Our focus with SmartCloud is to bring the benefits of this model in a way that supports enterprise level service, leverages existing investments and opens new doors to productivity and innovation," said Clementi.
