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Comments
IBM Bets Big On Global Datacenter Network
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Stratustician
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Stratustician,
 User Rank: Ninja
1/20/2014 | 1:59:46 PM
Global, but still a US Company?
I'm curious to see if this is really a strong play to look like a more global company when it comes to hosting data, since a lot of organizations are starting to prefer non-US based data centres thanks to the NSA revelations.  I'd be curious to see how these data centres are connected, and how things like load balancing across geographic zones and other inter-geographical affected services would affect the compliance requirements for customers in each location.
Charlie Babcock
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Charlie Babcock,
 User Rank: Author
1/17/2014 | 7:26:07 PM
So how many data centers does Amazon Web Services have?
Laurianne, IBM's 40 global data centers compares favorably to Verizon Terremark's 49 and CenturyLink Savvis' 50. The telcos had lots of data centers before cloud computing came along to support their network operations. I've never inspected a Verizon or CenturyLink data center to verify that the whole thing is dedicated to cloud computing. My guess is, it isn't. Nevertheless, they are my two best examples of global reach. Amazon Web Services lists seven regions in which it operates data centers around the world. Because Amazon has multiple "availability zones" in each center, think independent power and communications or a small, free standing center, I count each Amazon region as more than one data center but can't supply an exact comparison. Something like 16 or 18 is realistic, in my opinion.

   
ChrisMurphy
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50%
ChrisMurphy,
 User Rank: Author
1/17/2014 | 3:55:25 PM
Low cost
"... as contrasted with the commoditized cloud model that emphasizes low costs, instead of business growth and innovation."

Seems like companies will only do this -- take on this risk -- if it lowers costs. They might also see the growth and innovation elements, wrapped in some kind of "agility" language, but won't the table stakes for any IT exec be lowering costs compared with the current option?
Laurianne
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50%
Laurianne,
 User Rank: Author
1/17/2014 | 3:35:45 PM
Re: Getting to 40
Charlie, how does the scale of this commitment compare to IBM's closest rivals?
cbabcock
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50%
cbabcock,
 User Rank: Strategist
1/17/2014 | 2:53:48 PM
Getting to 40
Wall Street Journal reports IBM needs 15 additional data centers to reach its goal of 40. IBM's Dennis Quan didn't have a definite figure during the interview. InformationWeek eatimated 17 needed, based on previously reported SoftLayer and SmartCloud data centers. Take your pick.


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