After recently opening new offices in Germany and France, IBM has just opened its first 2.8 MW cloud data center in Milan, Italy. The data center which has the capacity to fit around 11,000 servers is part of IBM’s global expansion plan and offers its Italian customers the opportunity to host data and applications in all IBM cloud infrastructure services among other services.
According to the Polytechnic University of Milan’s Observatory of Cloud and ICT as a Service, Italy is widely known as ‘an emerging cloud market with over 30 percent year-over-year growth.’ Italy’s advanced IT industry was also one of the reasons why IBM decided to open a SoftLayer data centre in Milan. “The Italian IT sector is changing as startups and enterprises alike are increasingly turning to the cloud to optimise infrastructure, lower IT costs, create new revenue streams, and spur innovation,” said SoftLayer CTO Marc Jones in a press release.
“The Milan data center extends the unique capabilities of our global platform by providing a fast, local on-ramp to the cloud. Customers have everything they need to quickly build out and test solutions that run the gamut from crunching Big Data to launching a mobile app globally,” Jones added.
IBM Cloud supports various Italian startups, emerging businesses, and enterprise organizations like ROIALTY, an Italian startup that has offices in Milan, Parma, and London; and kitchen hoods leading designer and manufacturer Elica. "This data center represents a financial and technological investment made by a multinational company that has faith in this country's potential,” said IBM Italy General Manager Nicola Ciniero. “Having an IBM Cloud presence in Italy will provide local businesses with the right foundation to innovate and thrive on a global level,” he added.
According to IBM’s press release, ‘the new facility provides the fast-growing Italian cloud market with a local IBM Cloud presence, allowing customers to deploy their workloads in the country and benefit from a low-latency connection into IBM Cloud’s global platform, which securely integrates data and applications for clients around the world.’ Moreover, the most recent data center in Milan, which can also be used by global customers, will make it easier for all IBM’s customers and partners to organize, run, store, and manage data.
“Today, organizations aren’t only concerned about keeping IT costs down; they also face the challenges and opportunities that arise from of the process of digitalization, in which data rules,” said Ciniero in a press release. “These companies are looking for solutions to store and compute data, run analytics tools, and support applications for mobile and social arenas. The world-class infrastructure available in the Milan data center caters to today’s digitalization challenges, providing customized solutions that can enable new business models, increase competitiveness and growth, and encourage internationalization,” Ciniero added.
In 2014, IBM invested USD 1.2 billion in global cloud infrastructure and currently the company has 24 SoftLayer data centers out of its total of 40 cloud data centers all over the world. Soon, IBM is expected to open a data center in Chennai, India.
(Picture Source: leakato.info )