Omnivorous IBM
Demonstrating that its appetite for acquisitions remains healthy, IBM announced it had acquired privately held Cast Iron Systems--the 56th company the IBM Software Group has absorbed since 2003--which offers cloud integration software, appliances and services.
According to IBM, Cast Iron has completed "thousands" of cloud integrations globally for financial institutions, media and entertainment companies and retail organizations. With Cast Iron in its business process and integration portfolio, IBM is able to help businesses integrate their cloud-based apps and on-premise systems.
The company says the acquisition "also advances IBM's capabilities for a hybrid cloud model, which is attractive to enterprises because it allows them to blend data from on-premises applications with public and private cloud systems."
Cast Iron joins a cloud effort at IBM that also includes another appliance entry called Cloudburst, a private cloud solution based on the System x BladeCenter platform, that comes pre-installed with the cloud framework. Cloudburst does not utilize existing technology--a cardinal sin in the eyes of many cloud vendors--but rather creates a new infrastructure for deploying images and patterns.
Cloudburst includes an entire rack loaded up with everything necessary to get the cloud concept up and running. With its built-in ability to provision those apps on an as-needed basis, it integrates very well with WebSphere applications.
IBM predicts the worldwide cloud computing market will grow at a compounded annual rate of 28% from $47 billion in 2008 to $126 billion by 2012.
Question: Who would you choose for your private cloud vendor, Amazon or IBM?
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 05/04/2010 at 12:48 PM