IBM is setting its sights on the cloud computing industry yet again, announcing a new cloud-based service that will compete with Microsoft, Amazon, Google and others.
The IBM "Smart Analytics Cloud" is the first cloud service that will be internally adopted by the software company. The Smart Analytics Cloud will be the company's largest cloud-related public launch, with the company aiming to catch up to competitors that have entered the market before them.
The service will be made available directly to consumers as well, which will operate using a 48-processor IBM System Z10 -- the system is able to compute 10,000 secure transactions per second, according to IBM. The public IBM cloud will also use a System Z IBM product, offering what the company hopes will be a fast, reliable cloud service.
I find it especially interesting that IBM will adopt its cloud service internally -- since the company has more than 200,000 employees worldwide, adopting its own service is a strong showing of the service's expected capabilities.
"This new model of cloud computing will provide our employees with a single place to access real business insights, improve standards compliance, and create a repository of best practices throughout the company," IBM CIO Pat Toole said in a statement.
Cloud computing has increased in popularity as businesses look for methods to cut back on the cost of hardware and data center usage.
Although the technology is still maturing, there are still several issues that companies must try and prevent from happening. For example, Microsoft and T-Mobile were recently embarrassed when a Microsoft subsidiary suffered a reported power outage, which dropped service to the cloud for many T-Mobile Sidekick owners.
