IBM Acquires SoftLayer and Dumps SmartCloud Enterprise
Tech giant IBM has recently squired SoftLayer’s cloud services and they plan on replacing their current cloud offering named “SmartCloud Enterprise” in efforts to mitigate some of the negative feedback they have received from customers. IBM’s SmartCloud Enterprise has been plagued by performance issues as well as regulatory issues because the cloud did not meet certain guidelines. Some analysts suggest that SmartCloud Enterprise may have lacked in security features which made some companies hesitant to adapt the technology. Another big hurdle was the SLA involved with the SmartCloud Enterprise because many clients couldn’t accept the risk of playing within their SLA guidelines when they didn’t mesh with their own internal standards.
A representative from IBM recently acknowledged that they plan on migrating all current SmartCloud Enterprise users to the more robust SoftLayer cloud. IBM will be offering this migration for free to existing SmartCloud Enterprise users and the deadline on scheduling a migration is January 31st 2014.
One thing that should be noted about this migration is that users of the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise+ will not be affected in this migration. Another big piece of this puzzle is IBM’s commitment to use OpenStack within their cloud. Using SoftLayer will allow IBM to use OpenStack within their cloud deployments which will in turn help IBM service large enterprises.
The acquisition of SoftLayer represents a second chance in the large enterprise cloud arena. IBM has traditionally been a player in these types of markets and this move will allow IBM to stay competitive moving forward. SoftLayer also offers dedicated server for lease which will allow IBM to use this market as a vertical as well. SoftLayer will allow IBM to hit key SLA’s with large corporate players and allow the company to offer a more secure cloud to those who enjoy the reliability that they have come to expect from the IBM platform.
