IBM Research and SAP demonstrate real-time cloud-based application mobility

Dr Joachim Schaper, vice president EMEA of SAP Research, explains that the technology, developed as a part of the European Union-funded Reservoir project, is designed to provide companies with a range of cloud computing solutions. In the demonstration, IBM and SAP show how users can run enterprise applications in the cloud, in particular demonstrating migration of workloads across servers and data centres. “The breakthrough we’re showing is that applications can flexibly move across remote physical servers, regardless of location – which makes our work a strong enabling technology for the cloud,” says Schaper. “Specifically, in cloud-scale environments, service providers will need to provide users with access to services across the cloud. Service providers will need to compete on performance and quality of service – and so the future cloud will need to support application mobility across disparate data centres to enhance performance.” “With Reservoir, our aim is to provide cloud technologies that will enable energy-efficient, borderless delivery of IT services that are driven by actual demands – with the goal of keeping costs competitive,” adds Dr Yaron Wolfsthal, senior manager for system technologies at IBM’s Research Lab in Haifa, Israel, where the technology was developed. “The new technology is allowing us to realise the vision of true cloud computing by moving applications across disparate interconnected networks to optimise load balancing across remote servers. When changes in workload occur, the new technology autonomically balances resource utilisation and power consumption across remote servers,” he continues. “This is done, for example, by evacuating and turning off under-utilized servers, and possibly entire data centres when demand drops, and powering on idle servers when load increases.”