Intel reveals ‘Intel Inside’-like program for cloud computing era

Many attributes of traditional consumer computing are set to extinct in the cloud computing era. One of the things supposed to disappear is “Intel Inside” logo and program since many do not care about technology that powers their businesses from the cloud. Nonetheless, Intel just does not want its brand name to become less important even in the new era, which is why it introduced “Intel Cloud Technology” program on Wednesday.

The world’s largest chipmaker has teamed up with 16 cloud service providers (CSPs) around the world in a bid to communicate to end-users the specifications, performance, quality, and security benefits of the Intel technology used by CSPs. Thanks to the “Intel Cloud Technology” program, customers will be given a view into the technology powering a CSP's infrastructure before they purchase any services or instances. The “Powered by Intel Cloud Technology” badge will help CSPs to differentiate themselves from the rivals and will remind their clients how important Intel’s technology is. The first participant in the program was Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Even a slight change in cloud instance performance can impact sales on e-commerce sites. For enterprise and other IT buyers evaluating hybrid or public cloud services, CSPs participating in the Intel Cloud Technology program will provide detailed information about available CPUs, hardware acceleration features, storage, software and network capabilities – all of which can have a have significant impact on applications, costs and experiences for end users.

CSPs will promote the users' benefits of Intel cloud technologies powering their services through multiple channels. The capabilities available today from participating CSPs aim to significantly increase performance of applications and security of end users' data and include Intel Turbo Boost technology, Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX), Intel Data Protection technology with Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (AES-NI), and Intel Virtualization technology (VT).

“Cloud customers want to know what technology their applications are running on because it has direct impact to their business,” said Jason Waxman, vice president of data center group and general manager of cloud platform group at Intel. “For the first time, users will have the transparency to select the technologies that are optimal for running their applications in the cloud.”

Additionally, Intel will drive direct marketing campaigns and participate in co-marketing activities with CSP partners in the program to educate customers about underlying technologies, their impact on applications performance, user experience and ultimately the business. Understanding service capabilities helps the cloud user make better choices, which can lead to significant cost savings.

To help IT decision makers to better understand their own needs and offerings by CSPs, Intel will also provide a special Cloud Finder tool that provides a comparison guidance across more than 50 CSPs for 80 end-user requirements.

The list of participants in the Intel Cloud Technology programs includes such companies as Virtustream; Canopy, an ATOS company; Cloud4com; CloudWatt; Expedient; KIO Networks; KT; Locaweb; NxtGen; Online.net; OVH; Rackspace; Savvis, a company of CenturyLink; Selectel; and UOL Host.

KitGuru Says: While “Intel Inside” programs has always relied on customers’ belief in Intel, the new “Intel Cloud Technology” actually helps to understand the benefits of Intel’s hardware to customers who want to outsource their IT needs to a CSP. This will help the chip giant to better compete against AMD, ARM and other technology vendors in the new world of cloud computing.

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