Today’s organizations face an unparalleled rate of change. According to an IBM study, 80 percent of CEOs anticipate turbulent change in their companies and are planning bold moves in response.Many organizations are turning to cloud computing—an approach that promises to improve IT service delivery and increase utilization of resources while reducing operating expenses.

1. IBM Software Data Sheet
Cloud Computing
IBM SmartCloud
Provisioning
Build a low-cost, highly scalable private cloud on a
breakthrough IBM platform
Today’s organizations face an unparalleled rate of change. According to an
Highlights IBM study, 80 percent of CEOs anticipate turbulent change in their com-
panies and are planning bold moves in response.1 Many organizations are
● Improve time to value with a reliable, turning to cloud computing—an approach that promises to improve IT
non-stop cloud capable of automatically
tolerating and recovering from software service delivery and increase utilization of resources while reducing
and hardware failures operating expenses.
● Reduce IT costs and complexity by
enabling self-service requests and But while many companies need the flexibility, security and control that a
automating operations private cloud offers, they don’t want the complexity and risk of an
● Create rapid scalability to meet business
advanced cloud implementation. For those seeking an easier and more
growth with near-instant deployment of affordable entry into cloud computing, IBM offers a low-cost, highly scal-
hundreds of virtual machines able option through IBM® SmartCloud Provisioning.
SmartCloud Provisioning provides businesses with a true infrastructure-
as-a-service (IaaS) cloud, reducing costs and providing a highly scalable,
rapid deployment environment for running applications and reacting to
dynamic changes in user resource demands. It works behind the scenes to
prevent service outages by automatically working around hardware fail-
ures and supporting in-place adding, removing and upgrading of physical
servers—all without configuration changes. SmartCloud Provisioning
also provides an easy first step toward cloud computing, providing a
hardware- and hypervisor-agnostic approach and integrating with
other IBM products to provide a comprehensive service management
infrastructure.
SmartCloud Provisioning is a breakthrough entry-level platform that
allows companies to get cloud-enabled within a few hours. It allows stan-
dardization of IT processes for new levels of operational efficiency, and it
serves as a foundation for adding advanced cloud capabilities, including
cloud orchestration, as needs change in the future.

2. IBM Software Data Sheet
Cloud Computing
Rapid and reliable access to the cloud provisioning overhead by minimizing the copying of image
With SmartCloud Provisioning, IT organizations can rapidly data through the use of copy-on-write technology which
implement the specific type of cloud environment they need, handles changes on each provisioned virtual machine.
whether small, medium or large. It provides rapid deployment
of virtual systems as well as network and storage virtualization Low touch infrastructure
with preconfigured images that help organizations get the cloud Standardized and automated configuration, provisioning
up and running quickly. and monitoring help administrators save valuable time while
reducing errors and improving security and compliance. The
Companies can then start taking immediate advantage of the solution can automatically tolerate and recover from software
increased flexibility and performance that cloud computing and hardware failures, and redundant nodes have a highly avail-
offers. Accelerating the delivery of computing resources in able and robust infrastructure. Management agents connected
turn speeds the delivery of innovative products and services, in a peer-to-peer network are coordinated by a dynamically
enabling companies to respond faster to market challenges and elected leader agent.
opportunities.
This low-touch private cloud environment offers near-zero
downtime with automated capabilities that can recover from
storage or compute node failures while the cloud continues to
run. Patches and upgrades can be applied to the cloud without
taking it down. New tasks such as power/restarts and configura- API API API
tion settings can be performed within minutes through an intu-
itive interface. And highly fault-tolerant parallel deployment of
virtual machines allows organizations to improve performance Cloud
management
against the most stringent service level agreements. fabric
Capabilities that cover the cloud Virtual Storage Area Network
SmartCloud Provisioning is a true IaaS cloud providing a
highly scalable, rapid deployment environment with near
zero downtime and automated recovery across heterogeneous
platforms. The solution offers an easy-to-use, self-service user
interface so end users can get fast and reliable access to the
systems they need, ultimately boosting productivity. Within an Infrastructure-as-a-Service architecture, IBM SmartCloud
Provisioning provides a highly scalable, fault-tolerant, parallel deployment of
Rapid scaling to meet demand virtual machines to help improve performance against the most stringent
service level agreements.
At any point, the cloud can be rapidly scaled up or down as
needed, helping organizations meet changing IT requirements
without disrupting operations. Administrators can reduce their
2

3. IBM Software Data Sheet
Cloud Computing
Reducing the cost and complexity of Provisioning can then become the basis for other
cloud computing IBM advanced cloud offerings such as IBM Service
SmartCloud Provisioning is a breakthrough platform that Delivery Manager for the cloud.
provides a simple and lightweight entry into cloud technology,
helping companies reduce the cost and complexity associated IBM has led thousands of successful cloud engagements and has
with deploying cloud computing while providing comprehen- established cloud adoption patterns that reflect best practices
sive capabilities for visibility, control and automation. based on extensive experience in the field. IBM can provide
cloud solutions from the beginning of the adoption curve to
Armed with the tools to provision hundreds of virtual machines full-scale, enterprise-wide operations, giving organizations
in as a little as two minutes, IT organizations can realize the across all industries one-stop access to comprehensive
value of the solution in a matter of days. SmartCloud solutions that support multiple delivery models, platforms
and workload types.
IBM SmartCloud Provisioning at a glance
Hardware requirements:
The following are minimum required values for memory and disk space.
Linux on x86_64 for PXE server:
● Number of processors: One
● Memory: 4 GB
● Disk: 50 GB
Linux on x86_64 with VT capacity for compute node:
● Number of processors: One
● Memory: 8 GB
● Disk: 100 GB
Linux on x86_64 with VT capacity for storage node:
● Number of processors: One
● Memory: 8 GB
● Disk: 200 GB
Software requirements:
IBM SmartCloud Provisioning supports the following operating systems.
● Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6/6.1 (64 bit)
IBM SmartCloud Provisioning supports the following hypervisors.
● KVM
● Xen
● VMware
3

4. For more information
To learn more about IBM SmartCloud Provisioning, contact
your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit
ibm.com/tivoli/products/service-agility-accelerator-cloud
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2011
Additionally, financing solutions from IBM Global Financing
can enable effective cash management, protection from IBM Corporation Software Group
technology obsolescence, improved total cost of ownership and Route 100
Somers, NY 10589
return on investment. Also, our Global Asset Recovery Services U.S.A.
help address environmental concerns with new, more energy-
Produced in the United States of America
efficient solutions. For more information on IBM Global October 2011
Financing, visit: ibm.com/financing All Rights Reserved
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com and Tivoli are trademarks or registered
trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United
States, other countries, or both. If these and other IBM trademarked terms
are marked on their first occurrence in this information with a trademark
symbol (® or ™), these symbols indicate U.S. registered or common law
trademarks owned by IBM at the time this information was published. Such
trademarks may also be registered or common law trademarks in other
countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the web at
“Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States,
other countries, or both.
Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service
marks of others.
References in this publication to IBM products and services do not imply
that IBM intends to make them available in all countries in which
IBM operates.
No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
without written permission from IBM Corporation.
Product data has been reviewed for accuracy as of the date of initial
publication. Product data is subject to change without notice. Any
statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to
change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and
objectives only.
The information provided in this document is distributed “as is” without
any warranty, either express or implied. IBM expressly disclaims any
warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or
noninfringement. IBM products are warranted according to the terms and
conditions of the agreements (e.g. IBM Customer Agreement, Statement of
Limited Warranty, International Program License Agreement, etc.) under
which they are provided.
The customer is responsible for ensuring compliance with legal
requirements. It is the customer’s sole responsibility to obtain advice of
competent legal counsel as to the identification and interpretation of any
relevant laws and regulatory requirements that may affect the customer’s
business and any actions the customer may need to take to comply with
such laws. IBM does not provide legal advice or represent or warrant that
its services or products will ensure that the customer is in compliance with
1
“Enterprise of the Future: Global CEO Study,” IBM Corporation, 2008. any law or regulation.
Please Recycle
IBD03003-USEN-00