IBM readies cloud for business

As if to compound the already tricky task of selecting a cloud computing vendor, we now appear to be receiving at least one announcement each week. Most recent is IBM, which has announced a set of commercial cloud services and integrated products for the enterprise.

The Smart Business cloud portfolio is intended to make "simple services" out of complex business process, says Big Blue. "These offerings are aimed at helping clients deal with entirely new kinds of tasks and the colossal data burdens facing the data center."

The portfolio includes three ways to deploy the cloud model: Smart Business standardized services on the IBM Cloud; Smart Business private cloud services behind the firewall built by IBM; and CloudBurst workload-optimized systems for clients who want to build to their own cloud with pre-integrated hardware and software.

All three offerings include IBM's service management system, which automates self-service, provisioning and monitoring for the cloud.

- here's the release