IBM Launches OpenStack Services
IBM has added OpenStack services to its
IBM Cloud marketplace to
support interoperability between on-premise IT systems and off-premise cloud
workloads.
OpenStack is a free and open source
cloud computing software platform for public and private clouds. With the
addition of OpenStack services to the IBM Cloud marketplace, it will be easier
for IT teams to deploy an OpenStack cloud on top of IBM Cloud. The service
provides access to
SoftLayer's self-service global cloud infrastructure, giving organizations
the "flexibility, security, power and scale of IBM cloud in an open
environment," according to the company.
As educational institutions increasingly shift operations to the cloud, many
are choosing open standards, such as OpenStack, which provide them with more
flexibility than proprietary standards. According to the company,
IBM OpenStack services will give organizations that flexibility, letting them
"select from a range of underlying hardware configuration options based on open
standards and deploy services from IBM’s SoftLayer global data centers with a
managed-services approach based on the needs of the workload."
The company cited a number of benefits of using its OpenStack services,
including faster deployments and improved consistency across multiple
environments owing to improved interoperability between hosted and on-premise
systems, as well as predictable performance, speed and agility.
In related news, IBM introduced object storage as a service on its open cloud
development platform, Bluemix.
Developers can use Bluemix to create applications and store their objects in
SoftLayer's OpenStack Swift-based Object Storage. According to the company,
Object Storage is more scalable than traditional file system storage
environments, requires less metadata to store and access files, and reduces the
overhead of managing file metadata, so organizations can scale out object
storage "simply by adding nodes."
Further information about IBM OpenStack services can be found on the
IBM Cloud site.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].