No man can control the weather, but it seems as though some are hoping to control the clouds - when it comes to corporate cloud computing anyway. IBM has announced plans to build a $360 million North Carolina data centre, as well as a Tokyo facility designated to deliver cloud computing services to corporate customers. The various technologies encompassed under the umbrella term 'cloud computing' allow more computer programs and data to be stored in data centres and accessed online, Many industry insiders predict a major shift towards cloud computing - certainly if the actions of the digital world's biggest players are anything to go by.
Last year, Google and IBM announced that the companies would be working together in researching the new technology. In May, bigmouthmedia investigated their efforts to dominate cloud computing when the companies revealed intentions to build a worldwide network of servers. IBM's latest announcement proves its commitment to an ongoing drive to expand and improve its cloud computing infrastructure.
The North Carolina data centre is reported to be a key component in IBM's Project Big Green initiative. IBM plans to install high density computing systems that will reduce energy costs by utilizing virtualization technology.
Online news service MarketWatch reported that Willy Chiu, vice president of IBM Performance on Demand Solutions said:
"Cloud computing is fundamentally about re-engineering the world's computing infrastructure, to enable game-changing -- even life-changing -- applications.
"To IBM, cloud computing is much more than the normal evolution of a data center."
IBM was not the only company to unveil its intentions to stay at the frontline of cloud innovations this week. Yahoo!, Hewlett-Packard and Intel recently announced a joint cloud research program spanning the United States, Germany and Singapore. The program includes plans to build six data centres as research test beds and aims to provide resources to universities to aid research into cloud computing.
According to the New York Times, Prith Banerjee, the director of Hewlett-Packard labs, said that the joint initiative is global and focuses on systems-level technology of distributed management, networking and operating systems rather than simply zeroing in on applications written to run on cloud data centres. He claimed the project was much broader than the proposed initiative between Google and IBM.
Increased research into new technologies can only drive the industry onwards and upwards - lets just hope no one's focus becomes lost in the clouds as competition to commercialize cloud computing heat up.
