IBM has signed a seven-year $600 million deal with NiSource to provide IT services including the creation and management of a hybrid cloud computing environment.
The company said the $600 million deal value is comparable with the previous agreement. Recently, IBM faced severe challenges in closing its IT services deal with Bharti Airtel, an Indian telecom service provider.
While supporting NiSource’s focus on customer service, system security and business application performance, IBM will assist NiSource to deploy a hybrid IT model using SoftLayer as well as a private, secure cloud powered by traditional infrastructure to continue delivering reliable service to its customers.
IBM said hybrid cloud approach – supported by SoftLayer, a IBM company — offers better efficiency to enterprises by matching computing workloads to the best-fit infrastructure, agility to respond to changes in business demands, and the ability to add new capabilities such as analytics or mobile technology.
Violet Sistovaris, senior vice president and CIO at NiSource, said: “This new agreement builds on our existing partnership and keeps us on a trajectory to further leverage IBM’s extensive capabilities, new delivery models and advanced technologies to deliver efficient, reliable service to our customers.”
As part of the new IT services deal, NiSource, a vendor engaged in natural gas transmission, storage and distribution, as well as electric generation, transmission and distribution, will collaborate with the IBM Client Center for Advanced Analytics to bring new analytics capabilities that further enable the company to solve business challenges.
