IBM Launches New Hybrid Cloud for Enterprises

IBM has announced a new hybrid cloud solution based in part on technology the company got from its 2010 acquisition of Cast Iron.

IBM’s new hybrid cloud helps clients reduce the time it takes to connect, manage and secure public and private clouds. With new integration and management capabilities, organizations of all sizes will be able to gain greater visibility, control and the ability to automate their assets and computing environments, regardless of where they reside, IBM officials said.

The new offering makes it easier for users to integrate and manage all of their on- and off-premise resources, and will allow a task that once took several months to be done in a few days.

"As a user of IBM WebSphere Cast Iron, we have been able to not only easily integrate our on-premise and cloud-based applications, but also provide live feeds of order data changes to our sales reps on any device, including mobile phones, tablets and laptops," Randy Berger, IT manager for process and application development at Siemens, said in a statement. "Expanding on the Cast Iron platform will help IBM provide even better access and management for hybrid clouds."

IBM officials said more and more organizations are looking to leverage the scale and flexibility of public cloud, but are concerned about losing control of resources outside their walls. This is causing organizations to embrace a hybrid cloud model, where they can more easily manage some resources in-house, while also using other applications externally as a service, IBM said.

According to industry analysts such as the 451 Group, 39 percent of cloud users report that the hybrid cloud is currently part of their strategy, with this number expected to grow to 61 percent in the near future. This is the result of both private and public cloud users evolving toward the use of a hybrid strategy.

Yet, as businesses adopt a cloud computing model, they are faced with integrating existing on-premise software such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and homegrown applications, while managing their usage and security, IBM said. Managing the complexities within and between such hybrid environments is key to effective enterprise business use of software as a service (SaaS), according to Saugatuck Technology.

To read the original eWeek article, click here: IBM Delivers Hybrid Cloud for the Enterprise