By Charlene O'Hanlon

Building on the need for interoperability, flexibility and industry standards for the cloud and next-generation data centers, Intel has created the Open Data Center Alliance, a group of more than 70 global companies of all ilk to develop a roadmap for vendors and channel partners alike.

The alliance is part of Intels Cloud 2015 initiative to make cloud environments federated, automated and client-aware, essentially creating smart” ecosystems of clouds that require little overhead or management.

At the heart of the companys cloud initiatives is its Xeon processor, which Intel believes will serve as a basis for cloud computing due in large part to its built-in features including Intel Virtualization Technology and Intel Trusted Execution Technology.

The Open Data Center Alliance is comprised mainly of end user companies including BMW, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lockheed Martin, Marriott International, Shell, Terremark and UBS all of whom have cloud projects or cloud research current under way, Intel said. The goal of the alliance is to use the experience of their collective projects to help design a roadmap of hardware and software requirements to further more open and interoperable cloud and data center solutions. Intel will act as an advisor to the alliance.

Also as part of its Cloud 2015 initiative, Intel announced the Intel Cloud Builders program, designed to steer the alliances recommendations to reality. The group is made up of vendors and solution partners whose goal is to provide proven cloud-building recipes as well as practical guidance on how to deploy, maintain and optimize a cloud infrastructure, Intel said. Current members include Canonical, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, EMC, Enomaly, Eucalyptus Systems, Gproxy, HP, IBM, Intel, Joyent, Microsoft, NetApp, NetSuite, Novell, Parallels, Red Hat, Univa and VMware.

The industry has an opportunity to accelerate the potential of cloud computing, delivering even better industry economics through this transformation,” said Kirk Skaugen, vice president and general manager of Intels Data Center Group.