By Graham K. Rogers

It was reported earlier today in a press release that CAT Telecom has signed an agreement with IBM to help with the provision of cloud computing services. With the increased interest in the provision of cloud services by private customers, industry and government, this solution is hoped to increase the capacity for such services, thus increasing Thai business efficiency.

The system planned will use IBM's SmartCloud infrastructure to provide services to private and government enterprise with support for cloud infrastructure management services from IBM included in the agreement.

It is claimed that through this CAT will be able to offer cloud services that are superior to those provided by other providers. The information adds that, "IBM will provide world-class services with best practices and extensive expertise to comprehensively manage all of CAT's systems. Customers will benefit from CAT's reliable, secure and responsive infrastructure through pay-per-use models, with IT resources that can be scaled to accommodate business growth."

CAT has been chosen to provide this initiative as it is trusted by the government and it is hoped the system will improve competitiveness for the country through its superior infrastructure.

CAT will leverage IBM's leading technologies to deliver cost-effective cloud services while reducing power consumption and improving performance through server and storage consolidation and virtualization. With IBM's cloud computing solutions, CAT will be able to develop and offer a wide array of cloud services, from infrastructure to software and application services, more rapidly and cost-effectively.

More details of IBM's cloud solutions are available via its IBMSmartCloud pages.

The press release is available online.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.