E-Commerce News: SaaS: IBM Offers Platform for Diving Into the Cloud

IBM Offers Platform for Diving Into the Cloud

By Erika Morphy
E-Commerce Times
06/15/09 2:43 PM PT

IBM wants to make it easy for companies to jump into the cloud in one "burst," so to speak. It's offering an integrated set of tools and services that let companies create cloud environments for the accomplishment of specific tasks -- say building test beds for software development.

eMarketer Whitepaper: Optimizing the E-Commerce Experience
From the Web to the Contact Center, are you prepared to proactively engage and keep your savvy customers? Read how e-commerce leaders are optimizing their sites with ratings, reviews, live help, Web analytics, mobile and more.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) had added a new service-and-hardware offering to its cloud computing repertoire. The bundle targets users seeking a single jumping-off point for deployment of a cloud environment focused on a discrete task, such as a test bed for application development.

IBM CloudBurst is a set of preintegrated hardware, storage, virtualization and networking tools that come with with a built-in service management system. It's an easy, one-off deployment to help companies get started on a particular project, IBM's Ric Telford, VP of cloud services, told the E-Commerce Times.

"It comes preloaded with a control blade that has four expandable additional blades that can also be used right away in a dynamic cloud delivery model," said Telford. "Companies can grow from there, adding more capacity to their chassis as their cloud computing needs dictate."

Running in Days

One of the top client uses projected for CloudBurst is building test beds, Telford noted. "Companies want to be able to build something like this without a big headache, and then get a quick ROI. They want to have it running up in days."

IBM already offers a raft of cloud computing services -- most of which are aimed at large enterprises with substantial investment capabilities.

IBM has incorporated the knowledge store it developed with earlier client deployments into the CloudBust offering, Telford said. "We have developed our best practices into standardized prepackaged offerings, based on what we see are a common set of needs for our clients."

IBM does well in tracking the demand drivers in the cloud computing market, Charles King, principal with Pund-IT, told the E-Commerce Times.

"What I found interesting about CloudBurst is that it arose out of research that IBM did with some customers," King recalled. "That was how it realized there was a need for end test environments for a cloud system solution. So it went out and built this."

Small Universe

Despite the hype that's enveloping the cloud computing space, there is just a small number of vendors providing infrastructure-based products such as CloudBurst for small-sized companies, King noted.

"What we have seen is large-scale infrastructure plays based on this idea of the cloud being the data center of future," he said

CloudBurst does not necessarily have to remain a one-off play for its users, King added. "There is no reason why this initial solution couldn't be incorporated into a larger cloud."

Next Article in SaaS

Citrix Online Brings SMBs Into the Virtual Meeting Room
June 15, 2009

Shrinking SMB budgets don't appear to have bruised Citrix Online, the company behind GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting and GoToAssist. The company has positioned itself as the go-to provider for small businesses that want to access the same type of real-time virtual meeting technologies large corporations use -- but without breaking the bank.

More by Erika Morphy

Windows 7 Flies Off the Shelves
November 06, 2009

Early sales figures on Windows 7 boxed software suggest a high level of consumer enthusiasm for the OS. Unit sales were a whopping 234 percent higher than Vista's out of the gate. The revenue haul was not as impressive, as Microsoft offered sharp discounts to spur presales. Also, sales of PCs with Windows 7 preinstalled have been lackluster -- but October is historically a weak month for PC sales.

Southwest Doesn't Fool Around
November 06, 2009

Either Southwest Airlines had better deals for my favorite route than its competitors or its superior Web site tools made it easier for me to ferret them out. Either way, kudos to Southwest. In the not-so-hot department were the airline's long list of what passengers weren't allowed to do and its very short list of what Southwest was obliged to do for them. Left me feeling a little chilly.

Commerce Search Puts Google Inside Retailers' Catalogs
November 05, 2009

Google has launched a new cloud-based search tool targeting enterprise-level e-commerce operations, just in time for the 2009 holiday selling season. Commerce Search provides a set of features designed to improve the relevance of results for consumers searching a retailer's own product catalog, while boosting cross-selling opportunities.

[Search More...]