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Cloud clout: Who are the real powers in the cloud?

Tags:
Applications,
SaaS,
Services,
Cloud

Cath Everett ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 18 May 2009 14:39 BST

CLOUD'S BIG FIVE: IBM

IBM has been pitching the utility-computing, computing on-demand message for at least seven years as a means of selling more systems and services. Consequently, the company has been happy to latch onto the cloud concept as an extension of existing activities. The vendor — perhaps afraid of being left behind and having to play catch-up as it did when the world moved to client-server — is adopting the new service-delivery model wholeheartedly across its business. Given IBM's general market strength, it is always one to watch, not least because of the credibility it provides when it enters new sectors.

How long has it operated in the cloud space?
IBM entered the cloud market in 2004 when it introduced Deep Computing on Demand (CoD) for supercomputer users.

What cloud services does it provide and what is the pricing model?
The CoD service evolved out of Deep CoD about 18 months ago to provide customers with access to more generic raw computing power. Users pay an annual membership fee for a VPN connection to IBM's datacentre and the ability to store their software stack on a home-node management server.

They then submit a request for extra computing power via the CoD portal when they require it and this is billed on the basis of per-processor time. Storage capacity is priced per GB, per week. The service has between 50 and 100 customers and is run from three datacentres: one in New York, one on the west coast of the US and the other just outside Dublin.

Other CoD-based services include offering customers a catalogue of pre-loaded software, such as the WebSphere application server on a CoD-based compute node, so that they can chose from a menu and use it immediately rather than having to load it themselves in advance. IBM would also manage and maintain the service rather than users needing to do so.

IBM's information protection services provide users with data backup, recovery and archiving services, on a pay-as-you-go per gigabyte basis. The service is supplied jointly by 10 IBM datacentres and another 67 belonging to partners of the vendor's 2008 Arsenal Digital Solutions acquisition. It has about 3,000 customers.

The vendor's SaaS products include LotusLive collaboration applications, which are paid for by the hour for online meetings, events and webinars and by the amount of storage used for emails. This service is provided from two IBM datacentres.

What back-end cloud infrastructure does it have in place?
On top of existing datacentres, Rick Telford, IBM's vice president of cloud services, says that to handle local data-privacy laws, the company is prepared to build new facilities in countries that stipulate data must reside within national boundaries.

"We're going to build cloud-delivery centres with countries' data privacy laws in mind. I don't know if we'll have to build one in every country — it will be based on market demand. But if needs be, we'll build one or work through our partners," he says.

What service-level agreements (SLAs) or security controls does IBM provide?
Each cloud service has its own set of terms and conditions and, according to Telford, the vendor provides the enterprise SLAs "that CIOs and large enterprises are accustomed to" for all of them.

The company's datacentres also comply with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountant's Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) 70 Type 2 standard.

What procedures exist should customers decide to switch vendors or bring services in-house?
"Our approach is to use standards-based application programming interfaces where they exist. Where they don't, we'll help to drive those sets of cloud standards that make sense for our customers," Telford says.

Examples of cloud standards include the creation of a web-services interface to provide a standard way of requesting cloud services from all vendors and a file-service interface to ensure that cloud services appear as simply another file system to users.

How does it position itself in terms of cloud computing?
Telford says: "We believe that there'll be a hybrid model of IT delivery, but for the next five years, most of the workloads that are delivered by IT today will be delivered in the same way. But only about 20 percent of typical workloads in any datacentre are mission-critical. The rest are commercial, off-the-shelf or not mission-critical, and it's that 80 percent that we want to look at delivering more cost-effectively.

"So there are two other options: public cloud services, delivered over the internet, and private clouds. As the public cloud delivery model becomes more important to customers, we'll continue to add to our portfolio in areas where there's a need or demand. With the third model, however, we'll help customers to transform parts of their datacentre to take advantage of the cloud delivery model without having to worry about going outside the firewall. This makes sense for workloads where compliance is an issue, for example."

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