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Conserve energy. Consolidate resources. Make information secure and available whenever and wherever it's needed. With mandates like these, we have to be smarter about accessing, processing and storing data.

This means thinking beyond the desktop and outside our own data centers. Thinking about more intelligent ways to handle the 15 petabytes of new information we generate each day, and the massive increase of connected devices we use to work with that data. Optimized for the remarkably diverse workloads managed by businesses, organizations and governments.

It's time for a platform designed for efficient, effective computing in wide open spaces...in other words, everywhere. It's time to think cloud.

Did you know? The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams. It is a simplification of the complex infrastructure it conceals.

 

Cloud Computing: Why choose IBM

Clients, employees and partners talk about why they chose IBM to implement a virtual server cloud computing model for their organizations.

Watch the video and learn more about cloud computing and virtual servers

The benefits of cloud computing—accessing your data and applications stored on remote hardware by way of the Internet instead of keeping it all in your local workstation—still requires a leap of logic for many. But now that a workstation can go anywhere as a smartphone, a stripped-down netbook, or even an e-book reader, it's practically a virtual desktop operating in conjunction with a virtual server anyway. If the user can be anywhere, so can the source for data and applications.

The cloud equation adds in the flexibility to scale bandwidth up or down at will and the affordability of pay-as-you-go service, and subtracts energy-devouring hardware from your local environment. Factor in the IBM security and experience that go into each of its industry-leading global cloud computing centers and myriad enterprise private clouds. The result: an instrumented, interconnected, intelligent approach to smarter computing.

It all comes together in the IBM Smart Business cloud portfolio, which introduces the industry's first set of enterprise-directed cloud services and integrated products. It brings sophisticated automation technology and self-service to tasks as diverse as software development and testing, desktop and device management, and collaboration. Offerings include:

  • Development & test cloud solutions for secure, scalable software development and testing
  • Desktop solutions for virtual desktops and end user support
  • IBM LotusLive solutions for online collaboration, secure cloud based email, and more
  • Information solutions for storage, business analytics and information archiving
  • Business and infrastructure cloud consulting services for adoption, infrastructure and testing needs
  • IBM CloudBurst 1.2 with integrated storage, virtualization, networking and built-in service management systems for a variety of workloads

 

IBM's forecast: a smarter planet covered in clouds

South African financial institution Nedbank is automating business processes through cloud technology. "IBM cloud technology has proved to us that we can shorten [business process automation environment deployment] provisioning time significantly, reduce our cost and also increase the agility with which we can respond to business demands," said Nicholas Parry, Nedbank.

With IBM Smart Business Virtual Desktop, Pike County School District in Eastern Kentucky has reduced end-user support costs more than 62 percent while providing equal access to education content across 27 schools and just over 2,000 desktops. The introduction of new courseware—what used to take more than a year—can now be implemented instantly across all schools.

Download the Forrester Report (102KB)

"Cloud computing increases our flexibility in providing IT resources to meet the growing demands of our global business," said Mr. Peng Jin Song, General Manager, Information Technology at Sinochem. "With IBM CloudBurst and the technical expertise from IBM Cloud Labs in China, we will be able to pool and maximize our resources to run our global business on the most efficient infrastructure possible."

Cloud Computing Podcast

Two IBM experts tell what's in a cloud and what makes IBM's cloud unique.

Listen and learn about cloud computing and the IBM difference (6:01 min)

Download a PDF transcription of this podcast (203KB)

 

My Cloud

Mailbox, collaboration space, virtual server...we each find the best use for cloud computing. That's how we build a smarter planet.

Watch this video

Seamus McManus: Beekeeper, Father of Cloud Computing

Where did the cloud computing paradigm come from? How can it help in reducing complexity and simplifying computing? What can it do for us today? And what does it have in common with beekeeping?

Watch this video for a whimsical look at the
history of cloud computing