IBM launches cloud centre

IBM has launched a dedicated cloud-services centre in Ehningen, Germany.

The datacentre add-on, which will host a range of cloud-geared technology platforms, shares its town with IBM's largest European datacentre.

The centre will provide a specific hub for customers wishing to store files in the cloud, virtualise desktops or design and test projects in a scalable environment.

High demand from customers across Europe and intensive use of a pre-existing cloud centre in Raleigh, North Carolina, drove the decision to build the centre, according to an IBM spokeswoman, who spoke to ZDNet on Monday.

The IBM spokeswoman noted that the centre's European base means that the cloud computing centre can provide lower latency "for some key applications they want to run in the cloud".

IBM predicts that the market for cloud computing will grow by around 28 percent a year in the period 2008-2012, from $47b (£31b) to $126b (£82b).

Update

The cloud competence centre is physically integrated with the Ehningen datacentre, according to Holger Macho, IBM's director of compute cloud development who spoke to ZDNet on Tuesday.

The advantages of being a part of the Ehningen facility stem from the facility's security, uptime and capacity, according to Macho, who explained that the cloud competency centre is "fully integrated, but separated from the [Ehningen datacentre's] strategic outsourcing areas".

Both the US and European cloud competency centres have been used by IBM to help study client behaviours in the cloud. Macho said that with clients new to the cloud IBM saw that after a few days of "playing" customers would "do serious stuff and start to compile something".

The cloud competency centres' worth comes from their focus on service, service delivery and speed of service in the cloud, according to Macho.