Wheelings & Dealings: 6fusion, CME Group Partner to Develop IaaS Commodity Exchange

CME Group, one of Europe's largest derivatives exchanges, is a step closer to launching a marketplace to enable trading of cloud resources, after entering into a definitive agreement with infrastructure metering firm 6Fusion. CME is now planning a beta trial of the service with 6Fusion, set for later this year.

6fusion is a company specializing the in the economic measurement and standardization of IT infrastructure. Under the terms of the LOI, the companies will develop an open marketplace for trading financial contracts based on a technology developed by 6fusion, which standardizes the measurement of computing resources.

6fusion’s UC6 software platform will be used to track fulfillment of physically delivered contracts traded on the spot exchange.

While commenting on the partnership, John Cowan, 6fusion CEO and co-founder, said, “6fusion was founded on philosophy that on-demand IT infrastructure will not reach it’s true potential until it can be consumed like a true utility and traded on an open exchange. An open exchange is good for both buyers and suppliers of cloud infrastructure. For buyers, it unlocks unprecedented visibility and control over the enterprise cloud transformation process. For suppliers, it dramatically reduces the cost of business acquisition and drives increased transaction velocity.”

The spot exchange beta is expected to feature a host of infrastructure buyers, sellers and partners.

6fusion’sWorkload Allocation Cube (WAC (News - Alert)) is the industry’s first patented benchmark to universally measure consumption and capacity of computing, network and storage resources. The WAC allows it possible for buyers to standardize the quantification of IaaS requirements, making it simpler to determine the infrastructure type, quantities, and pricing that best match requirements across heterogeneous suppliers in the marketplace.

Bryan Durkin, CME group chief operative, added, “CME Group’s experience with new products and technological expertise makes the company an ideal candidate to innovate in this space and we’re happy to work with 6fusion to go to market.”