IBM unveiled its “Blue Cloud” grid computing initiative to links large pools of systems and IT resources, allowing corporate data centers to operate more like the Internet. The goal is to enable computing across a globally accessible fabric of resources, rather than on local machines or remote server farms.
IBM said Blue Cloud will be based on open standards and open source software supported by IBM software, systems technology and services. The first Blue Cloud offerings are expected to be available in the spring of 2008.
IBM’s first Blue Cloud offerings will use Power and x86 processors. At an event in Shanghai, IBM demonstrated how cloud computing technologies, running on IBM BladeCenters with Power and x86 processors and Tivoli service management software, dynamically provision and allocate resources as workloads fluctuate for an application. IBM also expects to offer a System z “mainframe” cloud environment in 2008, taking advantage of very large number of virtual machines supported by System z. IBM also plans to offer a cloud environment based on highly dense rack clusters.
“Blue Cloud will help our customers quickly establish a cloud computing environment to test and prototype Web 2.0 applications within their enterprise environment,” said Rod Adkins, Senior Vice President, Development and Manufacturing for IBM Systems & Technology Group.
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