Deutsche Börse is launching a trading venue for outsourced storage and computing capacity – so called cloud computing resources – in the beginning of 2014.

Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange AG is a new joint venture formed together with Berlin-based Zimory GmbH to create the first neutral, secure and transparent trading venue for “cloud computing” resources.

The primary users for the new trading venue will be companies, public sector agencies and also organizations such as research institutes that need additional storage and computing resources, or have excess capacity that they want to offer on the market.

“With its great expertise in operating markets, Deutsche Börse is making it possible for the first time to standardize and trade fully electronically IT capacity in the same way as securities, energy and commodities,” said Michael Osterloh, member of the board of Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange.

As the first international, vendor-neutral marketplace of this type, Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange will set and monitor standards regarding the product offering, admission procedure, changes of provider and guaranteed purchased capacity.

Clients will be able to choose capacity providers freely, as well as select the jurisdiction that will apply to the outsourced data. The product offering will initially include outsourced storage capacity and computing power.

By creating a liquid market for computing and storage, participants can easily buy capacity for ad-hoc needs, while suppliers can sell down. In addition to purchasing capacity directly, suppliers can also trade among themselves.

For example, if a customer of a cloud provider wanted capacity in a location not serviced by that provider, such as Zurich, the company could easily purchase it from another via the trading platform and vice versa.

CloudSigma, an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider, is participating alongside other cloud computing leaders, as a member of Cloud Exchange.

“Participating in Deutsche Börse’s vendor-neutral platform for IaaS cloud computing products was a no-brainer,” said Robert Jenkins, CEO of CloudSigma. “CloudSigma was founded on the idea that computing power should become ubiquitous, convenient and shaped by user requirements. Trading compute on one of the leading financial exchanges is really a great market validation of what we’ve already been working toward and will help to further drive innovation in computing.”

“We are happy to have CloudSigma on board,” said Osterloh. “As one of the advanced and quite visionary cloud providers, they have been contributing very constructively as an early adopter.”

Founded in May 2013, Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange AG is a joint venture of Deutsche Börse and Zimory, a Berlin-based specialist in cloud management that ensures that the users connected to the marketplace have easy access to the cloud capacity they have purchased.