IBM Offers 'Cloud Computing' Appliance
IBM channel partners also will benefit from the new products because it will make it easier for them to implement cloud-computing systems for their customers and develop applications that run within cloud environments, said Kareem Yusuf, IBM director of WebSphere software. "They can very quickly set up or codify environments that serve their customers," Yusuf said of solution providers.
The IBM WebSphere Application Server Hypervisor Edition is a new version of the application server software that IBM said is optimized to run in virtualized hardware server environments such as VMware. That product is at the core of the IBM WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance, based on IBM's DataPower appliance server, that provides access to software virtual images and patterns that can be deployed, managed and maintained as a private cloud.
The combination of the two products allows businesses and managed service providers to consolidate and manage existing SOA resources as a private cloud, according to IBM, which in turn helps reduce application infrastructure deployment costs.
"Our customers are looking for ways to simplify their IT environments and leverage their existing assets," said Jim Deters, president of Ascendant Technology, an IBM solution provider partner, in a statement. "WebSphere CloudBurst will help them deploy and manage SOA in a cloud environment."
The WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance and WebSphere Application Server Hypervisor Edition will be available by the end of June.