Deutsche Boerse to launch Cloud Exchange to trade computing power

IntroGerman financial markets operator Deutsche Boerse is planning to commoditize computing power with the launch early next year of the world's first independent exchange for trading cloud computing capacity. The advent of cloud computing, whereby a remote network of computers is made available online, has not only enabled users to ditch much of their own costly hardware but also to switch between third-party machines according to where processing power is cheapest. Deutsche Boerse said the Cloud Exchange will open as a spot market in the first quarter of next year to companies and other organizations which outsource their data storage and computer processing needs, enabling them to buy capacity just like they would commodities such as oil and electricity. The operator of the Frankfurt stock exchange and Eurex financial futures market has set up a joint venture to operate the new market with Berlin-based cloud computing management software firm Zimory. Storage capacity will be traded in data units of at least 1 terabyte (TB) and processing capacity on offer will come in the form of at least 10 Performance Units (PU), with one PU representing 8 gigabytes. Deutsche Boerse said contract periods are for a day, a week, a month, a year or unlimited, with one day's notice for the buyer to cancel and one month for the seller.