SoftLayer fuels IBM hybrid Cloud growth

SoftLayer has fuelled hybrid Cloud adoption by attracting thousands of new customers according to parent company IBM.

The vendor announced it is launching a range of new Cloud services designed for the enterprise that are based on SoftLayer infrastructure.

IBM said that a year after acquisition, SoftLayer has become the galvanising force behind the firm’s acceleration to Cloud movement. IBM purchased SoftLayer for $2 billion in July 2013.

IBM touted new enterprise clients such as Macy’s, Whirlpool, Daimler subsidiar,y moovel Gmbh, and Sicoss Group. It said these are just some clients transforming operations for the hybrid Cloud era.

The vendor said that in addition to its expanded client base, more than 1000 business partners have signed on globally to offer services on SoftLayer. These include Avnet, Arrow Electronics, Ingram Micro, Mirantis Assimil8, Silverstring, Clipcard, SilverSky, and Cnetric Enterprise Solutions.

IBM Global Technology Services senior vice-president, Erich Clementi, said in its first year, SoftLayer had proven to be a pivotal acquisition for IBM Cloud.

"SoftLayer has quickly become the foundation of IBM's cloud portfolio anchoring our infrastructure, platform and software-as-a-service offerings and transforming the fortunes of many industry companies from Web start ups to established enterprises looking for the speed, flexibility and security that hybrid cloud environments provide. Of all the options for public or private clouds in the market.”

The firm has also announced the release of a range of new Cloud services for enterprise designed for Big Data requirements. These include products available on the Bluemix developer platform and IBM marketplace.

Some of the new offerings include: Watson Engagement Advisor on SoftLayer which allows organizations to gain insights from big data; Watson Developer Cloud on Softlayer that allows access for third party developers, entrepreneurs, academics, and system integrators looking to access Watson's cognitive capabilities; and Aspera high-speed transfer technology allowing users to move large unstructured and structured data with speed and security, regardless of data size, distance or network conditions.