IBM Announces Cloud Computing Center in Singapore

By Allison Proffitt

March 11, 2011 | SINGAPORE—Earlier this week, IBM announced a $38m investment in a new IBM Asia Pacific Cloud Computing Data Centre in Singapore scheduled to launch in April. The new facility will extend IBM's globally-integrated Cloud delivery network with centers in Germany, Canada and the United States; and 13 global Cloud labs, of which seven are based in Asia Pacific: China, India, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore.

The Singapore center will make available IBM's comprehensive Cloud services and technology portfolio via the company's Cloud delivery infrastructure. These services are designed to enable clients to reap the benefits of business and IT transformation; increase flexibility and agility; accelerate time to market; reduce costs; and increase security and compliance of public cloud environments.

“IBM’s investment in our Asia Pacific Cloud Computing Data Centre in Singapore reflects the increase in demand for Cloud solutions and services by our clients in the region,” said Andrew Sotiropoulos, general manager, global technology services, for IBM Asia Pacific in a press release. “The center will provide the highest security standards and capabilities to minimize capital expenditure and reduce operational costs.”

IBM said that the first offering to be available at the center will be from IBM's infrastructure as a service (IaaS) Cloud portfolio. Built on an agile Cloud infrastructure, the offering is designed to provide rapid access to security-rich, enterprise-class virtual server environments and is well-suited for development and test activities and other dynamic workloads. IaaS aims to reduce operational costs; eliminate capital outlays; improve cycle times for faster time-to-market; and improve quality with virtually instant, secure access to a standardized infrastructure as a service environment.

"The new center furthers IBM's focus on the delivery of cloud services and technology for both public and private clouds, giving clients the best available set of options to achieve their infrastructure ambitions," said Paul Moung, VP Cloud Computing, IBM growth markets, in a press release.

IBM's decision to invest in Singapore is aligned to the government’s call to entrench Singapore’s position as a hub for the delivery of Cloud computing services in the region and beyond. It is hoped that the center will help build the Cloud computing ecosystem in Singapore and attract more business.