Cloud is a shift from the focus on underlying technology implementation to leveraging existing implementations and further building upon them. Cloud orchestration or a network of clouds is the wave of the future where these clouds can operate with elasticity, scalability, and efficiency. Effective service management is an important aspect of managing such networks. The transition to the cloud will enable the further aggregation of composite web services and enhanced business-to-business capabili...| By Dustin Amrhein | Article Rating: |
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| November 17, 2009 10:45 AM EST | Reads: |
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A recent announcement from IBM signaled the availability of a new offering in the smarter planet initiative: IBM Smart Business Development & Test on the IBM Cloud. One of the newest offerings in the suite of cloud products from IBM, the IBM Cloud provides a public cloud where users can launch and run selected IBM software. As its name implies, the IBM Cloud is especially focused on development and test scenarios.
The idea is to let developers and testers quickly spin up both development and application runtime tools, use them, and just as quickly tear them down. Since all of the software runs on the IBM Cloud infrastructure users don't need to acquire hardware or software, nor do they deal with lengthy install processes. All they do is select the necessary software components and launch them into the cloud.

IBM was one of the sponsors of the 4th International Cloud Computing Expo, which took place November 2-4, 2009 at the Santa Clara Convention Center, in Santa Clara, CA, with more than 2,220 delegates.
To get started, users simply go to the home page for the IBM Cloud and sign up. Since the offering is currently in open beta, this means all users have to do is create a username and password. At this point there's no need to provide any kind of payment information like a credit card because users can launch instances for free. Once launched, these instances stay up and running for a user-specified period of time or until manually removed by the user.
As for choosing an instance to launch, users choose from a provided list of IBM software that includes products from IBM's Rational, WebSphere, and Information Management brands. This includes, but is not limited to, software like Rational Application Developer, Rational Software Architect, WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere sMash, and DB2. Once the desired software is selected, users move on to configuring the image that will be used to create a running instance on the IBM Cloud.
During the image configuration step, users provide a few important pieces of information. This includes standard information like the name of the instance launch request, the amount of compute resource required by the instance (specified by selecting from small, medium, or large server sizes), and the expiration date of the instance. In addition, users specify product-specific configuration information during this phase of the launch process. For instance, when launching a WebSphere Application Server instance users would provide the password for logging into the WebSphere Application Server administration console.
After the selection of the instance and configuration of the image, users only need to verify the configuration and accept licensing terms. Once this is done the process of provisioning begins. In a matter of minutes users can begin to utilize their selected and configured IBM software running in the public IBM Cloud.
It takes little time to launch software on the IBM Cloud, and as such, users can easily scale up and down their development and test environments to meet the current development and test goals of their business. Any user currently involved in development and test efforts, especially if they are using IBM software as part of such efforts, would benefit from at least taking a peek at this new offering (after all it's free to try out during the open beta). You can learn more about the IBM Cloud and even take it for a spin by visiting the website. Also, be sure to stay tuned for updates as the offering moves from open beta to a generally available public cloud platform.
Published November 17, 2009 Reads 6,019
Copyright © 2009 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
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More Stories By Dustin Amrhein
Dustin Amrhein joined IBM as a member of the development team for WebSphere Application Server. While in that position, he worked on the development of Web services infrastructure and Web services programming models. In his current role, Amrhein is a technical evangelist for cloud technologies in IBM's WebSphere portfolio. He blogs at http://dustinamrhein.ulitzer.com. You can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/damrhein.
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The focus of Java EE 7 is on the cloud, and specifically it aims to bring Platform-as-a-Service providers and application developers together so that portable applications can be deployed on any cloud infrastructure and reap all its benefits in terms of scalability, elasticity, multitenancy, etc. The existing specifications in the platform such as JPA, Servlets, EJB, and others will be updated to meet these requirements.
Java EE 7 continues the ease of development push that characterized prior ...
With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) just four months away, what better time to start introducing you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference...
We have technical and strategy sessions for you every day from June 11 through June 14 dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, what else h...
Wide and cheap availability of cloud-based media services is upon us. With the transformations these services are already bringing to the consumption of music, video and interactive media, change has likewise come to professional workflows. Documents in 2012 are read, written, collaborated on, and distributed anywhere an Internet-enabled device can reach – which is to say, everywhere.
In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Christopher Kenneally, Director of Business Development a...
I've been working on Enterprise Cloud Strategy and in the course of this work identified some interesting and non-obvious opportunities in the Cloud.
One solution I’ve examined is the well-crafted solution that is enStratus. enStratus has built a SaaS Cloud Management / Governance product focused on providing critical management, monitoring, governance capabilities tailored to the needs of the Global 2000 market, rather than the startup market. As I have worked with a current Fortune 500 clie...
With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) now under four months away, what better time to start introducing you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference...
We have technical and strategy sessions for you every day from June 11 through June 14 dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, what e...
2011 was a year of rapid adoption for public and private cloud services. Instant and on-demand server provisioning was the driving force behind the massive growth. On top, cloud server templates and script automation simplified application installation for simple and pre-defined application stacks, but have not targeted more complex enterprise application environments.
In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, John Yung, CEO of Appcara, will discuss how 2012 will be the year for app...
"Having been in the IT field for many years, I believe the cloud computing chapter in the industry is an exciting one and I am proud to be a part of it," said National Reconaissance Office (NRO) Chief Information Officer Jill T. Singer Tuesday, as it was announced that she was one of 10 winners of the 2012 CloudNOW "Top Ten Women in Cloud" Awards.
As more enterprises are adopting clouds, the nature of cloud computing is changing. Previously, clouds were used to test applications or for non-mission critical applications. Today, enterprises are using clouds for cost-saving advantages and launching more mission critical applications that have defined performance needs.
In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Eric Shepcaro, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Telx, will discuss how distributed computing has many advantages. It wou...
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