IBM expands in Japan with new cloud data centres


15 Jul 2011

IBM has expanded its cloud computing services for customers in Japan and the Asia Pacific region by opening an IBM Cloud Data Center in Makuhari, Japan. The company will also open a dedicated data centre for LotusLive, IBM’s cloud collaboration service.

The new facilities will extend IBM’s globally-integrated cloud delivery network of cloud computing centres that serve in more than 50 countries worldwide.

The new IBM Cloud Data Center in Makuhari delivers IBM’s SmartCloud enterprise-class services, which include secure managed services, to run workloads across several delivery methods, both public and private.

Enterprise clients in Japan can now select key characteristics of a public, private and hybrid cloud to match their workload requirements along five dimensions, including:  

  • Security and isolation
  • Availability and performance
  • Technology platforms
  • Management support and deployment
  • Payment and billing

New offerings will increase choices for customers with the potential for end-to-end management of service delivery from the server and operating system to the application and process layer.

It allows customers to expand production along with other workloads, like websites, batch processing, development and test and other initiatives, while reducing deployment time from days to minutes via automation and rapid provisioning with more than a 30pc cut in costs versus traditional environments.

The data centre for LotusLive, which will open later this year, is designed to allow customers in Japan to more easily move to the cloud.

LotusLive offers integrated social collaboration tools that combine a company’s business social network with capabilities such as file storing and sharing, instant messaging, web conferencing and activity management. The integration, which is designed to be secure, allows users to share and edit information, host online meetings and manage activities inside and outside company.

The Japan data centre aims help improve network performance and increase business opportunities for LotusLive users. The centre will allow clients, who can’t take their data outside the country because of security and regulatory compliance, to work in a security-rich cloud environment.