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Enterprise virtual machine on IBM Cloud
1. IBM Global Technology Services
Data Sheet
Enterprise virtual
machine infrastructure
on the IBM Cloud
Enhance business agility, cost efficiency and security
with cloud computing built for IT professionals
Setting up and maintaining an IT infrastructure while meeting the
Highlights needs of a dynamic business environment and agile application devel-
opment teams can be challenging. The up-front capital expenses and
● Enables increased business agility by operational costs are high, and infrastructures are often poorly utilized
reducing start-up time on new business
applications and shortening develop- and difficult to reallocate across applications and projects. The arduous
ment cycles tasks of procuring, configuring and maintaining hardware and software
environments are often manual, leading to high labor costs and an
● Helps reduce costs by providing an
alternative to owning, upgrading and increased risk of errors due to inaccurate configurations. Finally, you
maintaining a hardware infrastructure or need to maintain a security-rich solution that can support end users
extensive software licenses and teams, regardless of whether they are located across town or
● Provides a collaborative environment around the globe. Cloud computing can help you cope with these chal-
for IT professionals with built-in visibility lenges, plus it can help you respond to unpredictable workloads and
and control of enterprise cloud IT
reduce application development and deployment cycle times.
resources, promoting standardization
and improved quality
With IBM Smart Business Cloud – Enterprise, you can more rapidly
● Builds on a well-defined security model
access the IT resources you need and pay for them only when you
with a multitude of options to help you
extend your existing security disciplines need them. When you use virtualized resources on the IBM Smart
to the cloud Business Cloud, you have no infrastructure to maintain and you can
avoid up-front capital expenses as well as reduce your overall operating
costs. You can also set up new server environments in minutes as
opposed to weeks while improving quality by reducing configuration
errors. You can also create custom images and virtual machine (VM)
configurations that can be shared with others within your organization.
IBM’s software development organization has experienced approxi-
mately 50 percent in operational cost savings and 30 percent in
quality improvements using a cloud approach.1 Built to support
the needs of large and mid-sized enterprises, this standardized agile
cloud infrastructure can provide a security-rich environment that is
ready for business.
2. IBM Global Technology Services
Data Sheet
Enabling quicker benefits with faster to leverage cloud economics, companies from many others
setup and shorter cycle times industries, including financial services, life sciences, manufac-
The IBM Smart Business Cloud provides you with Internet turing, distribution and retail, have since joined them.
access to virtual server instances that are exclusively yours to
use and customize as you like. You can install applications Helping you reduce costs with an
and tools on top of the standard images and operating sys- enterprise-ready environment
tems, configure ports and adjust security settings just as you With the nearly immediate and automated access to server
would on servers in your own data center. Once you are satis- capacity you get from the IBM Smart Business Cloud, you
fied that a server instance meets your requirements, you can can generate considerable cost savings by closely matching
save a copy of it as one of your “standard images” in a private server capacity to your immediate needs. As your server
cloud catalog. You can share that image with others in your capacity requirements vary over the course of a day, a week, a
organization, and they can provision a virtual replica of your month or longer, or as they come in surges triggered by
server whenever needed. With this level of automation and planned or unanticipated events, you can provision and de-
standardization, our services can help you achieve a quicker provision capacity as required. This enables you to stop or
time to market and improved quality for critical applications slow the growth of your in-house capacity so that it meets
to drive faster business benefits. Our optional on-boarding your minimum requirements and pay for added capacity only
services can help you set up your account and get off to a when you need it. The resulting savings in capital expendi-
good start. tures on servers, software and supporting infrastructure, and
associated operational costs can be significant.
The IBM Smart Business Cloud provides a self-service portal
to help enable rapid access to virtual machines with a choice In addition, you can avoid the time-consuming procurement
of operating systems and options for adding middleware, of servers and software and the labor costs associated with
development tools and attachable persistent storage. In the installing, configuring and maintaining those server environ-
portal, you can pick the software you want from an image ments. Procuring a server on the IBM Smart Business Cloud
catalog and then choose the server configuration you want is facilitated by a web dialog that can deliver a ready-to-use
to run it on. The automated provisioning system can then virtual server within minutes. The server provisioning process
provide you with a ready-to-use virtual instance of the server is highly automated, reducing the need for traditional instal-
you specified within minutes. You can extend this automation lation tasks. Identical servers can be provided repeatedly from
further by using the built-in programming interface to start a catalog of server images with no provisioning costs. You pay
and stop machines on a fixed schedule or in response to only for the time that servers and other cloud-based resources
unpredictable load changes. are available for use.
The flexibility afforded by the cloud model has propelled The image catalog on the IBM Smart Business Cloud con-
many of our customers to new levels of business innovation tains a mix of ready-to-use standalone operating system
and agility. Without the need to invest up front in an IT images and images consisting of a software package combined
infrastructure for a new business venture, their organizations with a supporting operating system. The available operating
have the flexibility to explore a broader set of opportunities. system images are Linux® (Red Hat or Novell SUSE) and
If the new business venture thrives, the IBM Smart Business Microsoft® Windows® Server. Optional world-class software
Cloud infrastructure can scale to support it. If it does not, the packages from IBM (Lotus®, WebSphere®, DB2®,
investment in the opportunity can be kept to a minimum.
While media and gaming companies were some of the first
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3. IBM Global Technology Services
Data Sheet
Informix®, Tivoli® and Rational®) and independent soft- bundles on the fly to your private images. This unique func-
ware vendors are available, each with a selection of licensing tion can extend your ability to exercise control over your
options, including “bring your own license” and “pay as you enterprise platform.
go” with hourly rates. The x86-based virtual machine
instances are available in nine 32- and 64-bit configurations Leveraging the IBM Security Framework
consisting of between one and sixteen virtual processors with for improved cloud security
matching memory and local disk storage. The environment IBM Smart Business Cloud – Enterprise is a security-rich
provides a number of features for implementing highly infrastructure service that provides a “shell” within which
resilient configurations. your virtual servers run. The security of your cloud servers
builds on this “shell” model—IBM manages and maintains
Facilitating improved teaming and the infrastructure “shell,” while your organization manages
quality with tools and standardized the security of what happens inside your servers running in
configurations that infrastructure. The IBM Security Framework key con-
The IBM Smart Business Cloud – Enterprise web portal pro- cepts provide guidance on what that implies:
vides IT professionals with access to collaborative teaming
environments, regardless of where they are located. The por- ● People and identity—Helping ensure proper authentication
tal itself provides users with an enterprise account structure of cloud users
that enables them to share cloud-based assets like private ● Data and information—Helping secure data against loss
images and leverage shared knowledge. In addition, the cloud and corruption where it is transmitted and stored
has a unique catalog of IBM Rational development and test ● Application and processes—Managing application develop-
tools that you can provision to set up a scalable development ment and image change processes
and test team environment in the cloud for use by your ● Network, server and end point—Helping to provide a
enterprise and its partners. security-rich IT environment protected against intrusion,
corruption and abuse
The sharing of software images in the IBM Smart Business ● Physical infrastructure—Sourcing from IBM-protected data
Cloud can drive reuse and standardization across the enter- centers with mature policies and procedures
prise. This applies to development and test as well as produc-
tion environments. For development and test, it enables you For example, in the area of people and identity, IBM provides
to deliver higher quality applications and facilitates reduced authentication and security-rich access to the cloud portal,
risk by implementing a “use-and-throw-away” policy for test while your organization manages the users of your virtual
environments. You can consistently test on the same standard servers and applications deployed from within the portal to
platform, a best practice that has proven to reduce errors. For help ensure that they are properly authenticated and author-
production, this same sharing of standard configurations can ized, just as you would for servers in your own data center.
help you save time and reduce errors associated with building Similarly, IBM provides intrusion protection services on the
servers manually. To make this sharing even more effective, cloud network, while you manage firewall settings within
you can customize the IBM Smart Business Cloud provision- your virtual servers.
ing process to fit specific use cases by adding software
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