IBM to bring cloud services to Asia Pacific from new Singapore data centre

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 08 March 2011 07:56

IT Industry - Strategy

IBM is to open a new $US38m data centre in Singapore to deliver its cloud computing services to the Asia Pacific region.

The new facility will be part of IBM's globally-integrated cloud delivery network that presently comprises data centres in Germany, Canada and the United States. In addition, IBM operates 13 global cloud labs, of which seven are in Asia Pacific, in China, India, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore.

The centre is due to open in April and will initially offer services from IBM's infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud portfolio, "designed to provide rapid access to security-rich, enterprise-class virtual server environments and'¦well suited for development and test activities and other dynamic workloads," according to IBM.

Also, a "compelling catalogue of software from the IBM Software Group and 3rd party companies  will be available in a variety of payment models designed for mid-size and large enterprises and independent software vendors," IBM says.

According to Paul Moung, vice president, cloud computing, IBM Growth Markets, "IBM's investment in our Asia Pacific cloud computing data centre in Singapore reflects the increase in demand for cloud solutions and services by our clients in the region. The centre will provide the highest security standards and capabilities to minimise capital expenditure and reduce operational costs."

IBM quotes Chris Morris, director of cloud services & technologies with IDC Asia/Pacific, saying: "The APEJ [Asia Pacific excluding Japan] market for cloud computing services will grow by an average 40 percent per annum through 2014 to reach $US4.9b. A major driver of this growth has been the new regional data centres which are now emerging to provide the necessary infrastructure for growth of the key cloud service areas.

"While cloud services have been attractive in the past, concerns about the consistency of the service performance due to the potential impact of network latency and the location of the data have inhibited their uptake for anything that was a critical workload. This increased availability of enterprise-class cloud services will underpin the acceleration of cloud services in APEJ as cloud service shifts from the SMB sector to the large enterprise."