To prepare its global ecosystem of business partners for emerging cloud computing opportunities, IBM has launched a first-of-its-kind Cloud Computing Lab in the United Kingdom. The new lab in Hursley, England, will help IBM Business Partners cloud enable their technologies and gain the sales and marketing skills they need to take advantage of this fast-growing market.
"Our business partners are ready to cash-in on cloud computing, and they are looking to IBM for hands-on assistance to drive new business opportunities," said Jim Corgel, general manager, IBM ISV and Developer Relations. "The new Cloud Computing Lab will help our partners gain the skills they need to build next generation business applications and services for the cloud using IBM technologies."
Partners can access the lab from any of IBM's network of 38 Innovation Centers worldwide. As a result, partners at these centers can work virtually with the cloud experts at the Hursley IBM Innovation Center to enable their technologies and gain the skills they need to build and deliver new cloud services.
Experts from IBM's Cast Iron development team will be on hand at the lab to help partners connect on-premise and cloud computing environments for clients in the finance, healthcare, telecommunications and energy and utilities industries. IBM acquired Cast Iron earlier this year for its expertise as an integration-as-a-service company.
According to a recent IBM developerWorks survey of 2,000 IT professionals from 87 countries, 91% of respondents anticipate cloud computing to overtake on-premise computing as the primary way organizations acquire IT by 2015. In addition, IBM cites industry analysts' predictions that there will be significant growth for cloud computing services, with this year's $68 billion opportunity reaching nearly $150 billion in 4 years.
Linux is an important part of the cloud strategy at the IBM Cloud Computing Lab. The IBM CloudBurst / IBM Service Delivery Manager (ISDM) images are based on Linux, and Linux-based images can be deployed on System x and System z.
For more information on IBM Innovation Centers, go here.
For more IBM Cloud news, go here.