( T ]' Q7 M; A- n, }$ Q# KIBM will open a cloud data center facility in Hong Kong for its subsidiary SoftLayer on April 14, according to InformationWeek. Q+ \3 n* s0 t2 r; T2 E
& N" g. B- ?4 T$ F- X- eThe opening of the Hong Kong facility will mark the first of 15 data centers IBM said it is building throughout the year as part of a US$1.2bn investment for the expansion of its cloud storage business.7 {) H* W* O+ B, C0 z; t1 e
& q o4 o0 }6 G) }- f' MThe Hong Kong facility will have capacity for 15,000 servers and will have network connectivity provided by Equinix, NTT and Tata. 7 F9 p) z! d# C ! y. n# H; M. Q* r- ?# [Softlayer’s CEO Lance Crosby said in an interview with InformtionWeek the next Softlayer data center sites will most likely be Canada, Mexico, UK and Australia. 0 S0 Z5 |( B/ J+ e: Q " {2 Z! W7 x# h4 @/ U6 GIBM Watson will be available in the new Hong Kong facility making it only one of three facilities to provide the business intelligence engine- the other facilities to provide Watson are in London and Dallas. - M& { k/ V+ u" @, S- r# v8 r: ^5 B8 J1 O4 _3 v# |
IBM’s BlueMix platform-as-a-service on Softlayer - which was announced last month- will also be available from the Hong Kong site. % m# @ J. I4 D# e7 f 1 O( A" `- \9 y% iBlueMix is an implementation of IBM’s Open Cloud Architecture, leveraging Cloud Foundry to enable developers to rapidly build, deploy, and manage their cloud applications, while tapping a growing ecosystem of available services and runtime frameworks. 4 `7 Z$ ~, M1 f2 e& W! e ; ?$ P8 D7 u8 k" B1 q" S* A% ZIBM said it will follow flexible pricing schemes as it deploys BlueMix, allowing customers to consume it by the hour, by the month, or by the seat.; r8 i$ ~( y1 s7 B5 z