The world’s biggest shipping company, Maersk Line, is turning to HP’s Instant-On Enterprise cloud environment and technology services in an infrastructure services deal valued at US$150m.

Under the deal, HP will create a private cloud computing environment using HP Cloud Computing Solutions that will be managed by HP, using staff from both companies.
 

Maersk Line CIO Adam Gade said the new technology infrastructure arrangement, which builds on a previous contract with HP for other technology and support services, will help the company to stay competitive on a global scale.
 

“Maersk Line operates in a competitive global industry that demands innovation to create the agile technology infrastructure we need to be a leader among our peers,” Gade said.
 

HP is also contracted to carry out monitoring of Maersk Line’s entire IT operations and its service desk functions for about 38,000 users in 100 countries.
 

HP said it will use its Instant-On Enterprise offering to help Maersk transition to the Cloud, embedding technology “in everything it does to service its customers, employees, partners and citizens”.
 

The news comes with the release of HP’s Odyssey project, that brings together UNIX and x86 server architectures for improved availability and resilience. This sits under HP’s Converged Infrastructure, a key component of the Instant-On Enterprise which plans to bring the enterprise and IT closer together.
 

Other companies to have subscribed to Instant-On include Thomson Reuters, which is using HP modelling technologies to offer insight into its customer facing operations, right back to data center requirements.