IBM Cloud explained

IBM Cloud
Genre:cloud computing, IaaS, PaaS, cloud services

IBM Cloud (formerly known as Bluemix) is a set of cloud computing services for business offered by the information technology company IBM.

Services

As of 2021, IBM Cloud contains more than 170 services[1] including compute, storage, networking, database, analytics, machine learning, and developer tools.

History

SoftLayer

SoftLayer Technologies, Inc.
Type:Subsidiary
Location:Dallas, Texas, USA
Founder:Lance Crosby
Parent:IBM (since 2013)
Products:Dedicated Hosting, Managed Services
Module:
Child:yes
Asn:36351

SoftLayer Technologies, Inc. (now IBM Cloud) was a dedicated server, managed hosting, and cloud computing provider, founded in 2005 and acquired by IBM in 2013. SoftLayer initially specialized in hosting workloads for gaming companies and startups, but shifted focus to enterprise workloads after its acquisition.[2]

SoftLayer had bare-metal compute offerings before other large cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services.[3]

SoftLayer has hosted workloads for companies such as The Hartford, WhatsApp, Whirlpool, Daimler, and Macy's.[4]

Timeline

Initial launch of Bluemix (2013–2016)

In June 2013, IBM acquired SoftLayer, a public cloud platform, to serve as the foundation for its IaaS offering. Bluemix was announced for public beta in February 2014 after having been developed since early 2013. Bluemix was based on the open source Cloud Foundry project and ran on SoftLayer infrastructure. IBM announced the general availability of the Bluemix Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering in July 2014.[18]

By April 2015, Bluemix included a suite of over 100 cloud-based development tools "including social, mobile, security, analytics, database, and IoT (internet of things). Bluemix had grown to 83,000 users in India with growth of approximately 10,000 users each month.[19]

A year after announcement, Bluemix had made little headway in the cloud-computing platform space relative to its competition, and remained substantially behind market leaders Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS.[20] By August 2016, little had changed in market acceptance of the Bluemix offering.[21] In February 2016,[22] IBM Bluemix includes IBM's Function as a Service (FaaS) system, or Serverless computing offering, that is built using open source[23] from the Apache OpenWhisk incubator project largely credited[24] to IBM for seeding. This system, equivalent to Amazon Lambda, Microsoft Azure Functions, Oracle Cloud Fn or Google Cloud Functions, allows calling of a specific function in response to an event without requiring any resource management from the developer.

Re-brand to IBM Cloud (since 2017)

In May 2017 IBM released Kubernetes support as the IBM Bluemix Container Service, later renamed to the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service (IKS).[25] IKS was built using the open source Kubernetes project. This system, equivalent to Amazon Web Services EKS, Microsoft Azure AKS, or Google Cloud GKE, aims to provide a platform for automating deployment, scaling, and operations of application containers across clusters of hosts. In October 2017, IBM announced that they would rebrand their cloud as IBM Cloud brand, merging all components, thus retiring the Bluemix and Softlayer brands.[26] In March 2018, IBM launched an industry first managed Kubernetes service on bare metal.[27] In August 2019, 3 weeks after the close of Red Hat acquisition, IBM launched a managed Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud.[28]

In November 2019, IBM has announced that it had designed the world's first financial services-ready public cloud and that Bank of America was its first committed collaborator and anchor customer, joined shortly thereafter in 2020 by BNP Paribas as its first European anchor client.[29] IBM announced in April 2021 the general availability of IBM Cloud for Financial Services, including support for Red Hat OpenShift and other cloud-native technologies.[30] In July 2021, it was announced that SAP is onboarding two of its finance and data management solutions to IBM Cloud for Financial Services.[31] In September 2021, it was CaixaBank's turn to boost digital capabilities with IBM Cloud for Financial Services[32] and onboarding to new IBM Cloud Multizone Region in Spain.[33]

Customer base

In 2019, IBM partnered with the United States Tennis Association (USTA) to provide new AI-powered tools for the US Open.[34]

In May 2020, IBM announced agreements with six European companies, including Osram and Crédit Mutuel, that use IBM Cloud to access advanced technologies such as AI, blockchain and analytics.[35]

Reviews

IBM Cloud continued to be considered a leader in bare-metal in 2020, and distinguished itself by providing over 11 million possible custom configurations with the latest Power, Intel, and AMD CPUs and Nvidia GPUs.[36]

Environmental impact

In 2021, IBM announced it would achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.[37]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Catalog - IBM Cloud . May 2016 .
  2. Web site: Schofield. Jack. Microsoft and Google rise while IBM sinks in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for cloud providers. 2020-08-06. ZDNet. en.
  3. Web site: Nick . Hardiman . September 23, 2013. Softlayer: The bare metal IaaS provider. 2020-08-05. TechRepublic. en.
  4. Web site: Spring. Tom. 2014-08-22. SoftLayer's 9 Biggest Customer Wins. 2020-08-06. CRN.
  5. Web site: A Top IBM Cloud Leader Has Left As The Company Shuffles Execs. Bort. Julie. Business Insider. January 28, 2015. April 26, 2019.
  6. Web site: 2010-08-03. GI Partners Leads Buyout of SoftLayer. 2020-11-23. Data Center Knowledge. en.
  7. Web site: Exclusive: EMC, IBM eye web hosting company SoftLayer- sources. Damouni. Nadia. Reuters. March 15, 2013. April 26, 2019.
  8. Web site: Hosting Companies The Planet And SoftLayer Complete Merger. TechCrunch. November 8, 2010. April 26, 2019.
  9. Web site: SoftLayer: $78 Million in First Quarter Revenue. Miller. Rich. datacenterknowledge.com. May 17, 2011. April 26, 2019.
  10. Web site: SoftLayer Goes Global With its Network . Data Center Knowledge . Rich Miller . July 26, 2011 . June 5, 2013 .
  11. News: October 10, 2011. Digital Realty Signs SoftLayer to Data Centre Lease in Singapore. News release. December 16, 2021.
  12. Web site: Saba. Jennifer. IBM to buy website hosting service SoftLayer. June 4, 2013. reuters.com.
  13. News: IBM to Acquire SoftLayer to Accelerate Adoption of Cloud Computing in the Enterprise: IBM to Form New Cloud Services Division. June 4, 2013. News release. June 5, 2013. IBM.
  14. News: IBM (IBM) to Acquire Public Cloud Provider SoftLayer. Street Insider. June 4, 2013.
  15. Holland, Maggie (9 October 2014) IBM and SoftLayer: What a difference a year makes ITPro, Retrieved 18 May 2015
  16. Web site: SoftLayer Data Centers . 2015-05-19 .
  17. SoftLayer's new name: IBM Cloud, 2018 https://www.ibm.com/cloud/info/softlayer-is-now-ibm-cloud IBM, Retrieved 18 January 2019
  18. http://www.eweek.com/development/ibm-s-bluemix-paas-now-generally-available IBM's Bluemix PaaS Now Generally Available
  19. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/IBM-Bluemix-finds-converts-from-Amazon-Azure-in-India/articleshow/47303961.cms IBM Bluemix finds converts from Amazon, Azure in India
  20. https://www.networkworld.com/article/939204/gartner-shows-two-horse-race-in-iaas-cloud-aws-and-microsoft-azure.html Gartner shows two-horse race in IaaS cloud: AWS and Microsoft Azure: A “year of reckoning” leaves all other vendors behind
  21. https://www.informationweek.com/cloud/infrastructure-as-a-service/aws-microsoft-azure-top-gartners-magic-quadrant-for-iaas/d/d-id/1326529 AWS, Microsoft Azure Top Gartner's Magic Quadrant For IaaS
  22. Web site: IBM Launches Bluemix OpenWhisk, an Event-driven Programming Service . 22 February 2016 .
  23. Web site: Apache OpenWhisk project repository listing in GitHub. GitHub.
  24. Web site: apache/incubator-openwhisk. GitHub. 22 May 2017.
  25. Web site: Kubernetes now available on IBM Cloud Container Service . .
  26. Web site: Bluemix is now IBM Cloud: Build confidently with 170+ services . .
  27. Web site: IBM announces managed Kubernetes on bare metal . . 14 March 2018 .
  28. Web site: Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud: Power of Kubernetes, Expertise of IBM . .
  29. Web site: IBM and Bank of America Advance IBM Cloud for Financial Services, BNP Paribas Joins as Anchor Client in Europe . 2023-02-16 . IBM Newsroom . en-us.
  30. Web site: De-Risking Cloud Consumption: IBM Cloud for Financial Services. 10 November 2021.
  31. Web site: SAP jumps aboard IBM Cloud for Financial Services. 30 July 2021.
  32. CaixaBank boosts digital capabilities with IBM Cloud for Financial Services; Onboards to New IBM Cloud Multizone Region in Spain.
  33. Web site: IBM creates new cloud multi-zone region in Spain.
  34. Web site: September 8, 2019. How IBM is delivering AI-generated highlights at the US Open. November 26, 2021.
  35. Web site: Major European companies select IBM Cloud to drive innovation. 17 May 2020.
  36. Web site: February 3, 2020. Desire. Athow. Best bare-metal hosting in 2020. 2020-08-05. TechRadar. en.
  37. Web site: Moss. Sebastian. February 17, 2021. IBM promises to be net zero by 2030. 2022-01-03. www.datacenterdynamics.com. en.

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