IBM opens its Aussie multi-zone availability region for cloud

Connecting three data centres in Sydney. IBM Australia’s new cloud boss Eric Schnatterly says the company’s multi-zone availability region (MZR) for cloud is now live in Sydney. IBM announced plans to deploy an MZR in Australia last June. Schnatterly will use his address at the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations and Cloud Strategies summit in Sydney tonight to officially launch the MZR, though he noted it had already been quietly set live. The MZR, known as AP South, comprises three networked Sydney data centres and is being targeted at customers seeking high availability for their IBM cloud services. Schnatterly said that around 40 IBM cloud-based services, including its Watson APIs, could be configured to run in the MZR. He declined to comment on whether IBM A/NZ’s capital investment plans would cover an MZR for Melbourne, where the company also has cloud points-of-presence. However, he suggested that the economic case for doing that could be difficult. Instead, it was more likely that IBM could look to expand the reach of its cloud beyond data centres in Sydney and Melbourne