New online market launched to sell surplus cloud computing capacity

A company has launched what it claims to be the world's first cloud computing marketplace.

Toronto-based Enomaly, an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider, said that the new beta version of its SpotCloud Marketplace Platform provides an easy way for businesses to sell unused cloud capacity.

Cloud providers can use SpotCloud to clear out unused capacity and sell computing inventory that would otherwise go unsold, enabling increased use and revenue, without undermining their standard pricing.

Enomaly said that to avoid directly competing with regular retail sales of cloud services, SpotCloud uses an "opaque" sales model, which meters, tracks and bills cloud capacity buyers, and pays cloud capacity sellers directly.

The firm added that, for cloud capacity buyers, SpotCloud bridges disparate regional cloud providers, allowing buyers to find the best cloud providers at the best price.

Enomaly founder and CTO Reuven Cohen believes SpotCloud will serve as the central place to discover and buy computing capacity, based on performance, cost and location, through a web interface.

He cited an IDC report that predicts that by 2014, sales of cloud computing products or services will generate almost $56bn in annual revenues, and by 2015 "cloud service brokers will be the largest revenue growth opportunity", and "20 per cent of cloud services will be consumed via a broker".