IBM Advances Hybrid Cloud Push Along with VMware
IBM recently took what it billed as its next major step in the cloud by launching IBM Cloud marketplace, featuring tools and resources targeted to help developers, IT managers and business leaders to learn, try, and buy software and services from IBM and its global partner ecosystem. Additionally, Back in January, I reported on IBM's intent to put billions behind new cloud initiatives, including ones focused on OpenStack. Then, IBM announced plans to commit more than $1.2 billion to significantly expand its global cloud footprint.
Now, IBM is advancing its hybrid cloud capabilities by announcing a new cloud offering with VMware that enables enterprise clients to extend their existing on-premise VMware infrastructure into the IBM Cloud through VMware NSX.
The offering, which includes monthly billing and processor based pricing, allows customers to easily move workloads and applications across IBM’s global network of cloud data centers without sacrificing performance or low network latency.
IBM’s cloud infrastructure is positioned to run VMware vSphere deployments via SoftLayer bare-metal servers. Enterprises can run a single VMware environment to do live workload migrations between data centers across continents while being able to easily implement disaster recovery solutions. This makes transitioning into a hybrid model easier because it results in greater workload mobility and application continuity. It also helps companies make a more gradual transition to the cloud avoiding a complete forklift of IT operations.
“IBM is a key partner for VMware by providing its SoftLayer global cloud solutions for our joint enterprise clients,” said Geoff Waters, vice president, Service Provider Channel, VMware. “This partnership provides enterprises with a proven cloud platform on a global basis with high performance, enhanced security and control by using technologies from IBM and VMware. The ability to move workloads across continents offers enterprises new and exciting deployment options for their applications and cloud services.”
Key benefits of the new offering purportedly include:
o Perform Live Migrations — Live migration allows users to move an entire running virtual machine from one physical server to another, without downtime. Showcased today by SoftLayer, it is now possible to perform a long-distance VMware vSphere vMotion of distances up to 150ms round trip time (RTT). The astonishing 15x increase in RTT combined with SoftLayer’s private network allows for live migration of workloads globally.
o Storage Integration —VMware Virtual SAN offers radically simple, dedicated storage with exceptional performance, advanced availability and profile-based management.
o Preserving Network State — Since a virtual machine migration with VMware vSphere vMotion preserves the precise execution state, network identity and active network connections, the result is no downtime or disruption to users.
In addition, IBM is enhancing its Cloudbuilder Professional Services capabilities to include full support for and deployment of VMware vSphere 6. Via IBM Cloudbuilder it is possible to set-up a VMware vSphere implementation in hours and migrate workloads over to the new cloud leveraging a broad set of cloud based deployment patterns and capabilities. This can greatly reduces the risk and cost of cloud implementations by clients.
"Increasingly cloud users from business, IT and development across the enterprise are looking for easy access to a wide range of services to address new business models and shifting market conditions," said Robert LeBlanc, Senior Vice President, IBM Software & Cloud Solutions, recently said, in a statement.
New cloud services featuring VMware NSX and VMware Virtual SAN will be available on the IBM Cloud beginning in November.
For more information, visit: http://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing.