A consortium of global IT organizations called Open Data Center Alliance announced that IT services provider Capgemmini and telco China Unicom have joined its steering committee. The committee is responsible for setting course for the alliance, whose stated purpose is to provide "a unified vision for long-term data center requirements".

The alliance also announced that it will be introducing fees for both its adopter and contributor members (two levels of membership). Beginning in April, adopters will be required to pay $1,000 per year and the annual contributor fee is $5,000 per year.

Paul Soutter, global data center VP at Capgemini, said his company joined the committee because it believed in using IT manager’s "collective voice" to promote interoperability among future data center solutions.

"We look forward to working with other Alliance members in delivery of the 1.0 Usage Model Roadmap and continued definition of data center requirements moving forward," Soutter said. The roadmap will define usage-model requirements to resolve IT challenges and to fulfill infrastructure needs of cloud computing.

Boliang Liu, general manager of China Unicom’s IT department, also said his company was looking forward to completing the roadmap.

"Open, industry-standard, multi-vendor usage models are vital for data center and cloud infrastructure innovation, and China Unicom Group is honored to join the Alliance leadership," Liu said.

Previously existing members of the committee are BMW, China Life, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Lockheed Martin, Marriott, National Australia Bank, Shell, Terremark and UBS.

Members have a two-year commitment to the alliance, which includes active participation in its technical workgroups and financial financial support.

The committee has also selected 32 companies from around the world as its new contributing members. The committee charters contributors to develop a Usage Model Roadmap through participation in the technical workgroups.

The newly selected contributors are:

• Africa: Dimension Data.
• Americas: AT&T, eBay, Hospital Corporation of America, Motorola, Switch and Verizon
• Asia Pacific: Baidu, Bombay Stock Exchange, China Petroleum, Chunghwa Telecom, KT, Shanda, ShenzhenTencent and Sify
• Europe and Middle East: Atos Origin, Bank Leumi, BBVA, CERN, Clalit, Deutsche Telekom, DHL, ING, Nokia, Online Computer Library Center, Repsol YPF, Savvis, Swisscomm and Telecom Italia
• Latin America: Banorte, Locaweb and Vivo