{"id":1686,"date":"2010-11-26T07:00:14","date_gmt":"2010-11-26T15:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=1686"},"modified":"2010-11-26T07:00:14","modified_gmt":"2010-11-26T15:00:14","slug":"cloud-computing-50-billion-for-open-data-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/cloud-computing-50-billion-for-open-data-centers\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloud Computing: $50 Billion For Open Data Centers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Data centers should be simple, efficient and open. \u00a0With that as a goal, the Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) <\/a>was formed in October by 70 different companies. \u00a0While Intel has been the principle promoter of the group, potential cloud consumers appear to be the main power behind the organization. \u00a0These big customers want cloud standards that can promote interoperability and which can be sourced by multiple vendors.<\/p>\n

Members of the alliance include giant corporations like BMW, China Life, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lockheed Martin, Marriott International, Inc., National Australia Bank, Shell, Terremark, and UBS. \u00a0These companies have some of the largest corporate IT infrastructures in the world. \u00a0In fact, the aggregate buying power of the organization members is $50 billion — at least that is the total that these companies are currently investing in their IT operations. \u00a0This is a clear sign that cloud computing has the attention of large companies.<\/p>\n

Intel, in the role of principle non-voting technical advisor, is in the position of being able to promote a technology that is likely to require voracious amounts of computer processors, like those of Intel’s, \u00a0to power the cloud server farms of the future. \u00a0Although BMW IT chief Mario Muller, an alliance steering ccommittee member, said that the goal of the group is to be vendor-agnostic.<\/p>\n

The alliance is further broken up into five different working groups targeting specific interests that include:<\/p>\n