IBM is pitching for the mantle of the first major vendor to produce a Cloud appliance for its customers with the WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance for deploying applications to a private Cloud.

The IBM WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance provides access to software virtual images that can either be used in their existing forms or modified for customised applications. They can then be deployed and managed securely in cloud environment. The second element, included in the CloudBurst appliance, is IBM WebSphere Application Server Hypervisor Edition. It’s a version of the IBM WebSphere Application Server software specifically designed for increasingly popular virtual environments, like Vmware.

CloudBurst features the Rational Automation Framework for WebSphere to configure and tune application using 400 automated tasks in WebSphere Application Server environments. Integration with the Tivoli Service Automation Manager provides the ability to request and manage tasks using pattern-based deployment.

"The WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance combines the flexibility of service oriented architecture with the adaptability of the Cloud. It's new capabilities for rapid deployment deliver a fast return on investment to our clients,”said Tom Rosamilia, general manager of WebSphere at IBM. “About a year ago we started talking with customers about where the pain points were around Cloud, and this is the resulting product. This appliance freeze-dries the image, and you can ebb and flow with the volume. Traditionally you've had to provision for peak use so your servers can stand up. With CloudBurst, you can dispense images so you can quickly bring up capacity and bring it back down again."

Meanwhile as  part of its public cloud initiatives, IBM announced BPM BlueWorks, a cloud-based set of strategy and business process tools. BPM BlueWorks provides business users with the collateral they need to implement business strategies within their organisations based on industry-proven business process management techniques.