Sydney - 12 Jul 2017: IBM has announced the availability of its cloud container service in its Australian data centres, delivered out of Sydney and Melbourne, on IBM Cloud. The local availability of this service will fuel the speed and simplicity at which Australian developers can build and manage more secure and cognitive apps, while giving them the flexibility to keep their data within the Australian border. Available on IBM Cloud, the service uses Kubernetes, an open-source container orchestration system leveraging a Docker engine. The Australian deployment further enhances IBM’s existing global capabilities, providing Australian customers with more choice and flexibility.

 

“Container services available from Australian data centres are an important factor for businesses who need greater control over how and where their data is stored, to address compliance and security requirements, as well as WAN latency.  IBM’s new local offering will provide clients with increased performance, whilst the dual site deployment across Sydney and Melbourne ensures high availability and a strong disaster recovery posture. We’re committed to helping developers to do what they do best – invent. Today’s news provides an easy and simple way for them to automate critical parts of an app’s environment, whilst also providing the ability to build in cognitive intelligence, blockchain and Internet of Things services,” said Andrew Kupetz ‎Director & CTO, Cloud Computing, IBM Australia.

Delivered with a user-centric experience, IBM Cloud Container Service automatically provisions, updates and monitors the containers that developers use to create apps, helping them to more easily build cognitive innovations which weave in real-time security intelligence.

Container technology has existed for over 30 years, but recently has gained popularity due to the simplicity of using containers provided by Docker.  IBM partnered with Docker in December 2014 to bring containers to the enterprise market and launched containers-as-a service on its cloud platform in June 2015. In May 2017, IBM integrated the advanced container orchestration of Kubernetes into the IBM Cloud Container Service. 

As a fully managed service, IBM maintains the environment, handles security and provides orchestration of the underlying host infrastructure for container-based apps. Previously, organizations wishing to use the service could tap into it via IBM’s global data center network. IBM has now made the capability available specifically in Australia, with the service delivered out of IBM’s Cloud Data Centres in Sydney and Melbourne.

The key capabilities of IBM Cloud Container Service include:

• Fully-managed and highly available Kubernetes clusters to remove the burden of deploying, scaling and managing containers when building apps.
• Completely native Kubernetes APIs, built on IBM Cloud, for a seamless environment when working from different cloud infrastructures.
• The choice to store and access data across multiple platforms and repositories, without impacting security.
• Flexible isolation and capacity controls to design a container cluster to fit specific needs and budget constraints of an app.  
• Built-in security scanning and integration into IBM's X-Force Exchange, as well as live-scanning and risk analysis capabilities for each container.
• Automatic load balancing within a container cluster to increase app performance.
• A comprehensive view and analysis of each container cluster's performance metrics to identify possible efficiencies and improvements.
• An open, standardised platform allowing for easy integration with open technologies and easy portability of outside workloads.
• Rapid access to cloud services such as Watson APIs, blockchain, cloud data services, Internet of Things tools and more.

For more information on IBM’s new container service, please visit: https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/51843.wss