Cloud computing represents an opportunity for enterprise and service provider datacenters to become more agile and flexible by using self-service infrastructure provisioning; automated, dynamic resource pooling and scaling; and consumption-based metering to improve accelerate cloud infrastructure configuration, provisioning, and life-cycle management. Integrated systems, such as the IBM PureFlex System, pre-integrate and optimize software stacks with compute, storage, network, and management software resources to enable optimal performance of mission-critical applications and workloads. Many IT organizations are using integrated systems as core platforms to enable private clouds and public cloud service delivery environments. IDC interviews show that organizations using IBM PureFlex System as the infrastructure platform for cloud realized over $640,000 in benefits related to improved infrastructure deployment, performance, and operational economics.

To keep up with the demands of mobile usage and social business you have to manage huge amounts of data. This means you need your IT to support rapid development of new applications, particularly mobile and social apps, to keep pace with the competition. You need to be able to analyze big data to uncover new insights, business models and revenue opportunities. You have to be able to act quickly so you can respond while findings are still relevant. Cloud computing is the delivery model that can support these imperatives. Over 10,000 clients rely on IBM technology to optimize their social, mobile, and big data workloads on cloud infrastructure. PureSystems solutions build on this cloud experience, integrating it into the system to improve efficiency and simplify deployment.

The cloud decision may be the easy part. For most businesses, the benefits promised by cloud computing - including agility, process optimization, speed to market, and cost reduction - warrant a closer look, if not a test drive. At least at the decision-table, curiosity and hope in the potential for transformation are winning out over caution. This practical guide offers steps for moving your company into the cloud, at whatever pace you prefer, with a focus on the SmartCloud Services portfolio offered by IBM and its partners.

For a network that better supports your cloud and brings the most value possible to your business, its design has to be considered in the early stages of cloud planning. Read the white paper "Networking for cloud computing" to discover specific networking considerations for public, private and hybrid clouds.

"According to a survey by the IBM Center for Applied Insights and Oxford Economics, business leaders are becoming increasingly focused on the business value of cloud. Although the participant's cloud strategies differ in terms of scope, platform and delivery models, the chief takeaway from the survey is that cloud is not just about cutting costs and driving efficiency - cloud fuels growth."

IBM PureSystems offers highly integrated solutions that can help you deploy and tune applications for cloud architectures with ease. Read the research report to take a deeper look at PureFlex Systems within the PureSystems family and learn how PureFlex Systems can help you streamline management and accelerate client time-to-value with a new integrated and modular system/subsystem.

The IBM SmartCloud™ Entry on Power Systems™ solution provides a cost-competitive, entry-level private cloud solution that helps speed time to value of your service deployments on your IBM Power Systems servers.

Cloud computing offers new possibilities and new security challenges. These challenges range from governance, through to securing application and infrastructure. Fundamentally it is important to be able to assure the security of these new models in order to build trust and confidence. IBM has extensive experience of delivering in shared environments, a common characteristic of cloud. This experience ranges from managed services, through to infrastructure as a service and platform as a service. This paper introduces IBM's approach to delivering cloud security for infrastructure services.