Inside IBM's only European Cloud Centre

IBM has been experimenting for some time with cloud customers, the company said. Shown here is an experiment which is intended to help a range of individuals, groups and organisations involved in Ireland's thriving fishing industry.

The Smartbay project deals with activities in Galway Bay, in the west of Ireland. The aim is to make a cloud application that pulls in various sources of information on the industry, to help those involved in it. The parties participating in the experiment include fishermen, the fisheries authorities, the tourist board, the Irish Water Board and the Meterological Office. All of these people and organisations are collecting information that other people and groups would find useful. This data is gathered together. then put into the cloud and made available to all.

The dashboard shown here shows the different information available. None of the data is fixed, and the dashboards can be changed to reflect the interests of the user. The data is available is real time.

"One of the ideas we are experimenting on is looking at how we can update the information on fish," explained one of the researchers. "At different times, conditions in the sea and in the weather patterns will make it an ideal time to fish certain types. So wouldn't it be great if at those times we could notify the fisherman by radio, or even on their mobile phones, that for the next two or three days it would be a good time to go and fish in a particular area? That is what we are working on."

The researchers see applications like Smartbay as a way for the cloud to pay for itself in the long term, while still being a comprehensive research tool.