IBM has launched new cloud services data centers for government, making them the latest entrant in the FedRAMP/FISMA certified cloud services group. The IBM hybrid government clouds provide SoftLayer cloud infrastructure-as-a-service. IBM acquired SoftLayer, one year ago for $2 billion, since then the company has increased cloud revenues by 50%.
SoftLayer data centers will have initial capacity for 30,000 servers and share an isolated private network with 2,000 Gbps connectivity. IBM is also opening the market for the SoftLayer ecosystem, enabling business partners to deliver over 100 applications and services such as security, desktop virtualization and geospatial services directly to government clients.
In all the platform, like others in the space, offers hybrid and private cloud environments that can integrate on-premise and cloud-based workloads. According to IDC, hybrid and private clouds are expected to make up 80 percent of federal cloud deployments.
The first of the new data centers will open in Dallas, Texas, this month, with a companion center opening in Ashburn, Virginia, later this year.
IBM is also building a dedicated Security Operations Center for the new data centers to provide government clients with added security, availability and incident response capabilities.
The new data centers come as part of IBM’s $1.2 billion commitment to expand its global cloud operations for IBM Cloud Services in all major geographies and financial centers. By the end of 2014, IBM will operate 40 data centers across five continents, and will double SoftLayer cloud capacity.
Fifteen new data centers will be added to the existing fleet of 25, in locations including China, Hong Kong, London, Japan, India, Canada, Mexico City and Dallas.
Additionally, the company has also launched the Bluemix Platform-as-a-Service Acceleration Program for US Federal, which is designed to enable a cloud-based ecosystem of developers, independent software vendors and federal systems integrators.
