IBM has announced an expansion of its global cloud network with a new cloud center in Mumbai, India and a new suite of cloud services for OpenStack. The Mumbai center further expands IBM's global cloud footprint, which includes centers in London, Amsterdam, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Melbourne, Toronto, Dallas and Raleigh, NC, opened this year alone as well as the soon to be opened Paris cloud center, the latest in IBM's $1.2 billion investment in Cloud Centers in every major market worldwide.

The driving forces behind the adoption of cloud computing worldwide include requirements for businesses and governments to store certain data locally to comply with data residency regulations, as well as a growing desire for startups to expand their businesses globally. IBM estimates about 100 nations and territories have adopted laws that dictate how governments and private enterprises handle personal data. 

In addition to the need for a global network of cloud centers to address growing client demands, companies also looking for a secure, dedicated and highly available environment that enables greater flexibility and an open cloud. To address this, IBM is also introducing the IBM Cloud OpenStack Services via the IBM Cloud marketplace. This will enable greater interoperability between existing IT systems and off-premise cloud workloads and provides its clients with the means to more easily deploy an OpenStack cloud.

The new Mumbai IBM Cloud Center is part of IBM's commitment to continue to grow IBM's Cloud presence around the world. This effort includes IBM's business consulting division, which features thousands of cloud experts with deep industry knowledge who are located around the globe to enable clients to move to cloud. These experts are dedicated to working face-to-face with clients to address all of their industry specific needs as they transform to the cloud era. 

"This new Mumbai center is IBM's latest investment to create the most extensive global network of cloud facilities in the industry to help clients expand globally with cloud and tackle data sovereignty issues," said Lingraju Sawkar, Director, Integrated Technology Services, Global Technology Services IBM India / SA. "Through this new center, we are able to help usher businesses into the cloud era while delivering the levels of security that allow them to experience the benefits of this new environment and ensure they remain protected."

Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the new, 31,000 square foot Mumbai facility offers an array of solutions including proven cloud resiliency services. These services guarantee customers up times of 99.99 percent across any IT environment, including traditional IT, public, private, or hybrid cloud deployments. In the event of an outage, the center's support team can recover data in minutes to ensure that is has little to no impact on business operations while going virtually unseen by customers.

Clients around the world are using IBM Cloud centers spread across every major market to help them adopt cloud for growth and innovation.

  • Daimler subsidiary moovel GmbH is using a cloud infrastructure from SoftLayer, an IBM company, for its car-sharing mobile application, cars2go to allow the company to better serve its customers around the world by helping them find the least expensive or fastest way to travel.
  • Kona chose IBM Cloud over AWS, Microsoft and Rackspace -- and has deployed a new cloud-based application development service on cloud infrastructure from SoftLayer, an IBM company to help it build dynamic mobile applications that link its customers' back end systems of record with mobile systems of engagement and help them expand globally.
  • Finzsoft's core and vertical banking applications, including its Sovereign application, turned to the IBM cloud to help the financial technology provider offer solutions-as-a-service to clients as the company expands in Australasia and across the Asia Pacific region. 

With the addition of the new center in Mumbai to its global footprint, IBM adds new resiliency service capabilities to these clients.

 

This article was originally posted “IBM Further Expands Global Cloud Center Network” from Cloud Strategy Magazine.