IBM announced this week that it will expand the reach of its hybrid cloud capabilities into China through the launch of Bluemix Local, the company’s cloud computing platform that allows developers to build apps quickly and securely and deploy them across public, private, and on-premises environments.
The expansion of Bluemix Local to China will further help Chinese developers answer the government’s call to boost entrepreneurship and innovation. China, according to analyst firm IDC, is home to 10 percent of the world’s developers.
Bluemix Local will allow Chinese businesses and developers to carry out hybrid app development on Bluemix while behind a firewall. The service extends Bluemix into a company’s data center with borderless visibility and management across Bluemix environments, making it especially valuable to companies that, for compliance or regulatory reasons, need to ensure certain data and applications are running in certain places.
“As the pace of innovation within China's thriving tech and developer ecosystem grows faster than ever, so does the demand to significantly expand how cloud can be used to quickly build intelligent and connected apps," said Steve Robinson, general manager, IBM Cloud Platform Services. “Today's news builds on IBM's recent collaboration with 21Vianet and establishes Bluemix as the premier cloud platform for helping developers and companies embrace this shift.”
The news comes after IBM’s recent announcement of its collaboration with 21Vianet, Inc., a Chinese carrier-neutral internet data center services provider. The two plan to make Bluemix available throughout the country and spur on a new era of hybrid cloud-driven innovation, as well as cognitive, analytics, and IoT app development for developers and businesses across the world’s most populous country.
“China is experiencing a wave of mass innovation from its booming tech community and developer population,” said Ernie Hu, General Manager of IBM Greater China Group, Cloud and Systems Software. “IBM's Cloud Computing platform aims to accelerate this innovation, and has the impact to transform industries throughout the country by making it easier than ever for businesses and entrepreneurs to build, deploy and run next-generation apps in any environment."
Bluemix Local has a number of new capabilities, including:
- Relay technology, created by IBM cloud development teams, that ensures all cloud environments remain current. Relay can instantly sync updates across environments, allowing enterprises to experience the same cloud content and visibility, regardless of location.
- A write-once, run-anywhere feature, allowing users to swiftly build apps in the cloud that stitch together existing systems, and connect data and API's into a single environment, while keeping apps current across all platforms.
- A private catalog and API Management services, allowing enterprise clients to create, publish, manage and monetize their own APIs.
- A single admin console that puts enterprises in control of their entire cloud platform with visibility through a single dashboard, including real-time releases, updates and patches.
Since its launch last year, Bluemix has grown to become the largest Cloud Foundry deployment in the world. The Bluemix catalog boasts more than 120 tools and services across categories that include big data, mobile, Watson, analytics, integration, DevOps, security, and the Internet of Things.
“This is a significant milestone for Bluemix and for Cloud Foundry,” said Sam Ramji, CEO of Cloud Foundry Foundation. “Cloud Foundry is a global phenomenon and IBM is responding very effectively to demand. China is becoming a major market for Cloud Foundry, the industry’s standard for platform-as-a-service.”