IBM partners with Chinese vendor

IBM says that it will team with China-based Range Technology Development to construct 6.2 million square-foot, state-of-the-art cloud computing data center that the companies contend will be the largest such facility in Asia, spurring economic development and also serving as an IT hub for the region, reports IT Channel Planet.

The operation, slated for completion by 2016, will be located in Langfang, an economically-developing city in Hebei Province just south of Beijing.

It aims to prompt economic growth in the region by enabling companies in China to provide enterprise-level outsourcing services, business continuity, disaster recovery, cloud computing storage and management of mobile devices, officials says. Services will be made available to government departments and private businesses, the companies say.

The World Cruising Club has chosen UKSolutions' hybrid cloud to handle its data requirements during its Trans-Atlantic races, says DataCentre Dynamics.

More than 1.6 miliion sailors require access to information through the World Cruising Club to data from around the world via Noonsite, the club's global information portal, during the event.

The UK-based hosting company has guaranteed 100% uptime, faster connectivity and greater security as a part of the contract that will see all World Cruising Club servers migrated into a UKSolutions facility early this year.

Cisco Systems unveiled a cloud storage feature for its series of entry-level desktop NSS 300 Series Smart Storage arrays, states IT World.

The Mozy hosted backup service, which has been added to the array's management software, is designed to let users set up automatic cloud-based backups, says David Tucker, vice-president of Cisco's small business technology group.

"The Mozy feature allows you to specify the files you want backed up to the cloud on a daily basis, so it can be very painless for the customer," Tucker says. "Let's say I've got files critical for my business and want to make sure I go one step further than on-site backup. This allows you to do that."