IBM to unveil cloud computing strategy

Jayashree Subrahmonia, director of IBM Cloud Labs, said that customers are finding that their own data centers, which for marketing reasons are increasingly called "private clouds," are running out of computing power as demand for applications surge, driven by mass adoption of Web 2.0 and mobile services.

IBM said it has developed new technology that lets IT managers transfer noncritical programs from their private data centers to public data centers run by IBM to free up computing power.

Big Blue is hoping to capture share in the growing cloud-computing market, which research firm IDC estimates can grow to $42 billion by 2012.

While many companies say they can deliver computing power on demand, most are using relatively old technology, analysts say. They aren't able to move software programs around the planet, dialing up a data center in Dublin, Ireland, when a server farm in San Jose reaches full capacity.

IBM demonstrated it can do exactly that at an event at its Silicon Valley Lab on Monday morning, as Rahul Jain, i"IBM's cloud architect, clicked on a box representing a computer in San Jose and dragged it over to a panel representing a data center in Dublin.

"IBM is on the right track," said Neil

MacDonald, an analyst with Gartner, another research firm. "The majority of the spending in the next five years is not going to be on public clouds, it's going to be on private clouds."

As part of the announcement, IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., will discuss its partnership with Sunnyvale-based Juniper Networks, which has updated its routers for IBM.

As cloud computing becomes more mainstream, IBM will go head to head against competitors like Hewlett-Packard, Sun, Cisco and Amazon as they attempt to woo customers, particularly giant corporations that traditionally spend the most on information technology. Google also is increasingly pushing applications like word processing and spreadsheets that run in a browser and can be delivered as a service, rather than sold on a CD.

Last year, Microsoft announced its new cloud operating system, called Azure, that addresses the technical challenges of cloud computing. But Microsoft has not said when its product will be commercially available.

IBM believes that its massive client base gives it a competitive edge in cloud computing. Dennis Quan, IBM's director of development for autonomic computing, said IBM talked to hundreds of clients in industries as diverse as media and manufacturing to understand how IBM could help improve their computing infrastructure.

Quan said IBM now has the "most complete set of hardware, software and service offerings" for cloud computing.

Contact Elise Ackerman at eackerman@mercurynews.com or (408) 271-3774.

WHAT IT IS: Cloud computing refers to when companies use the Internet to access software programs running in giant data centers.

WHY IT'S HOT: Cloud computing provides companies simplicity and flexibility. It can handle large, unpredictable spikes in usage and in some cases, can reduce costs.

MAJOR PLAYERS: IBM, Amazon and Google.

CHALLENGES: Big companies, large universities and government entities are concerned about whether software running in the cloud is safe and reliable. They"re also wary of getting locked into a particular provider.

SOURCE: Mercury News reporting

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