The IBM SmartCloud brand includes infrastructure as a service, software as a service and platform as a service offered through public, private and hybrid cloud delivery models. IBM places these offerings under three umbrellas: SmartCloud Foundation, SmartCloud Services and SmartCloud Solutions.[14]
SmartCloud Foundation consists of the infrastructure, hardware, provisioning, management, integration and security that serve as the underpinnings of a private or hybrid cloud. Built using those foundational components, PaaS, IaaS and backup services make up SmartCloud Services. Running on this cloud platform and infrastructure, SmartCloud Solutions consist of a number of collaboration, analytics and marketing SaaS applications.
IBM also builds cloud environments for clients that are not necessarily on the SmartCloud Platform. For example, features of the SmartCloud platform—such as Tivoli management software or IBM Systems Director virtualization—can be integrated separately as part of a non-IBM cloud platform. The SmartCloud platform consists solely of IBM hardware, software, services and practices.
IBM SmartCloud Enterprise and SmartCloud Enterprise+ compete with products like those of Rackspace and Amazon Web Services. Erich Clementi, vice president of Global Technology Services at IBM, said in 2012 that the goal with SmartCloud Enterprise and SmartCloud Enterprise+ was to provide an Amazon EC2-like experience primarily for test and development purposes and to provide a more robust experience for production workloads.[15][16]
In 2011, IBM SmartCloud integrated Hadoop-based InfoSphere BigInsights for big data,[17] Green Hat for software testing[18] and Nirvanix[19] for cloud storage. In 2012, the then new CEO Virginia Rometty said the company planned to spend $20 billion on acquisitions by 2015.[20]
Users may build their own private cloud or purchase services hosted on the IBM cloud. Users may also purchase IBM hardware, software and services to build their customized cloud environment.
By 2014, the name SmartCloud has been replaced with products that have a prefix of "IBM Cloud". A product called IBM Cloud Manager with OpenStack would be IBM's integration of OpenStack along with a multitude of value additions that would serve enterprise customers. A product called IBM Cloud Orchestrator would serve the orchestration needs of an enterprise. The aforementioned SmartCloud products have been discontinued.