Fujitsu is ready to unveil its global cloud strategy - a strategy framed using the company’s real experience in association with customers on cloud computing services along with the delivery of solutions across the world.

Australia is posted to be ranked as the first country to launch the cloud computer service following Japan, where it was developed by Fujitsu’s in-house staff.

The company also plans to introduce the same service in Singapore, the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany soon after that.

“Fujitsu has been developing its cloud computing technologies by looking at changes in society and how technology can help people cope with those changes - what we call a human-centric standpoint,” quoted, Kazuo Ishida, Corporate Senior Executive Vice President, responsible for ICT Services Business.

Fujitsu already offers cloud platforms regionally for the infrastructure mode, and this offering is reportedly taking its effect from today with the global deployment of a standardized cloud platform.

This global platform is expected to contribute to the local cloud platforms, by fulfilling the requirements of customers who require a global standardized ICT infrastructure.

The infrastructure mode and application mode are revealed to be a further addition of the conventional services being facilitated by Fujitsu.
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IBM said Tuesday it’s begun selling a cloud-based, software development environment to commercial enterprises, government agencies and other organizations following a successful beta test of the system.
The company’s new Smart Business Development & Test cloud provides users with instant access to numerous, online development resources as well as remote server space. The setup offers cloud-based versions of Rational Software Delivery Services and DeveloperWorks Cloud Computing resources.

Customers can either host the environment themselves on a private cloud or tap it from remote servers maintained by IBM. For users looking for an all-in-one setup, IBM is offering CloudBurst for Development & Test, which includes integrated hardware, software, virtualization and storage tools.
IBM said it believes customers can cut IT labor costs by 50% and reduce software defects by 30% by moving development to the cloud.

The problem with internal development and test environments, IBM said, is that they consume as much as 50% of an organization’s entire IT infrastructure but typically remain idle 90% of the time.

One company that’s already kicked the tires on IBM’s development cloud is Ebay’s online payments unit PayPal. Among other things, PayPal developers are creating and testing payments applications for smartphones in IBM’s cloud.

IBM is enlisting a number of partners to build out its development cloud, including management and provisioning specialists RightScale and Kaavo, as well as security provider Navajo Systems and process management specialist Silanis.

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Fujitsu’s services strategy has entered a new phase following the availability of its first cloud-based solution.

Previously announced as a core strategy for Fujitsu in 2010, the Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering is designed as a flexible environment allowing customers to retain control of servers, storage systems and applications. Organisations can manage their own usage, add and remove services and change capacity through an interactive portal.

The integrator expects to have its first customers on-board by the end of May. The outsourcer will focus strongly on its traditional large corporate and government customer base.

Fujitsu has broken its cloud strategy into four levels of consumption, aiming to making the transition to the cloud as minimally confusing as possible. Initially, infrastructure consumption will be the first step, and limited to the number of applications customer take onto the service to minimise complexity.

Application consumption becomes the second phase through Fujitsu’s cloud adoption model, followed by higher-level activity consumption. Finally, the outsourcer sees its cloud services moving into content consumption, which focus on media usage in the cloud.

Fujitsu CEO, Rod Vawdrey, said the biggest initial inhibitors to adoption, especially in the initial stages, would be customer confidence in cloud technologies.

“There’s still a long process ahead in terms of building confidence, with government agencies around security,” Vawdrey said. “It’s not a technical constraint, but at this stage it’s a policy constraint.

Vawdrey said initial adoption would likely be around relatively simple applications like mail. But as a major partner of organisations like SAP, Fujitsu sees the scale of its cloud applications expanding substantially.

Fujitsu’s solutions is being rolled out first in Australia and the UK, pioneering the start of a global strategy that aims to leverage off the company’s 97-strong datacentre network.
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A group of companies is starting up an Enterprise Cloud Buyers Council in hopes of removing barriers to enterprise use of hosted cloud computing.

Initial members include companies that offer hosted cloud computing as well as enterprises that use such services, including Microsoft, IBM, HP, Cisco, AT&T, BT, EMC, Deutsche Bank, Alcatel-Lucent, Amdocs, CA, Nokia Siemens Networks, Telecom Italia and Telstra. Two industry organizations, Distributed Management Task Force and the IT Service Management Forum, are also involved. The TM Forum, an industry association that helps information and communications companies create profitable services, came up with the idea of the council.

One important issue that the council will try to address is the current fear among enterprises of vendor lock-in, said Gary Bruce, a principal researcher at BT. The council may decide to work on standards-based solutions around various layers of cloud computing, including the virtualization, management and control layers, so that enterprises can more easily port their projects from one cloud computing vendor to another, he said.

In addition, enterprises are often concerned about security and reliability, he said.

“It might be that a full technical solution is needed, or it might be that education is needed,” he said. The council will study the issues and decide how best to address them, he said.

The council may also develop programs for dealing with cloud performance and latency issues

Noticeably absent from the initial list of members is Amazon, a leader in cloud computing services. A spokeswoman for Amazon did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Separately, however, Amazon is also trying to remove barriers to using hosted cloud computing. On Tuesday, it released a cost comparison calculator. The spreadsheet lets companies input information about their data needs, and then it compares the cost of using Amazon EC2, hosting the project internally or using a co-location facility. Amazon also released a white paper that outlines the direct and indirect costs of running a data center.

IBM and Microsoft did not reply to requests for comment about their involvement in the council. BT is currently developing a cloud computing service called BT Koala.

The TM Forum is hosting a Web conference on Dec. 16 to offer more details about the council.
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